


Half Blood: The Philosopher's Stone

by PostMortemPixie



Series: Half Blood [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Original Character(s), POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-10 21:16:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5601286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PostMortemPixie/pseuds/PostMortemPixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maddy Mender, the recently claimed daughter of Hades and long time Camp Half Blood camper, receives a letter carried by an owl to a school of magic.</p><p>Okay, that's a bad summary...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Owl at an Empty Dinner Table

**Author's Note:**

> AN: I know it's been forever since I've posted anything but I am fairly sad to say that my other stories are unlikely to be continued, however I have already completely written out this fanfiction! It is actually the first fanfiction I have ever completed! I plan to write out all seven books. If anyone's out of character please tell me(and I apologize), also tell me if anything doesn't make sense and I really appreciate reviews(please don't just criticize, if you do want to criticize my work please make it constructive as I'm trying to better my writing skills as well as skills of character development)
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, Percy Jackson or any characters that aren't canon in those series

**Chapter 1: An Owl at an Empty Dinner Tab** le

Madeline Mender was exhausted. She had just spent the last several hours moving all if her clothes and eleven years worth of items and monster trophies from the Hermes cabin all the way to the Hades cabin without help. It wasn't like nobody wanted to help she just denied it.

She really should have told everyone that she had been claimed sooner, like right when she had gotten back from that quest in Ontario about a month ago, but instead she waited until she accidentally used one of her new found abilities during Capture the Flag. The particular ability was Cryokinesis. It had accidentally been triggered by her being startled by a particularly large deer and she had ended up freezing everything within five feet of her, which, of course, drew the attention of everyone.

Maddy was sitting against the outside of her new cabin, enjoying the cool breeze that made the extreme summer heat bearable. She was worried about losing her small handful of friends but she had to admit that the Hades cabin was very aesthetically pleasing with its dark walls and green torches and she'd, for the first time in her life, have a room to herself and the decor was very nice as well, in her opinion anyways. Her friend, Maude, however, hated it.

"Hey, Maddy!" Maude exclaimed as she approached, pushing her long, black side bangs out if her eyes.

"Oh, hey," Maddy stood up to face her much taller friend.

"Done moving?"

"Yeah, now I have some time to bask in this excruciating heat before dinner."

"I remember moving into the Hecate cabin." Maude's eyes sort of glazed over as she reminisced in the memory of the excitement of the day she'd been claimed.

"Yeah, I remember that too," Maddy nodded, remembering her friend moving in with her cabin mates at the unusually young age of seven.

"Probably everyone remembers. Anyways wanna watch me die a little inside while I try to control a raft?"

"Oh gods no. I'm never going anywhere near that river ever again."

"That is understandable, see you after dinner," Maude said as she walked away.

"Bye," Maddy weakly waved, it made her sad that they were growing apart, Maude was Maddy's closest friend and they had been friends since she arrived at the camp.

She went back into her cabin and grabbed one of her drawing notebooks, some pencils, some pens and a few boxes of coloured pencils, then she went back outside and began to find something to draw, eventually deciding to draw the camp activities director, Chiron, shooting an arrow from his bow. Afterwards she went to dinner, sitting down at the empty Hades table. She offered up some of her food to the gods, adding in some extra to Hades.

As she was eating a large brown owl swooped down and perched in front of her, catching the attention of the nearby tables. Maddy noticed a yellowing envelope strapped to the owl's leg. Upon looking closer she noticed that her name was written in sparkling, emerald green ink. She slowly pulled the letter of of the nocturnal bird, apprehensive as it might bite her, and it flew away the minute the letter was no longer strapped to it.

 _Ms. M. Mender_  
_Half Blood Hill_  
_Farm Road 3.141_  
_Long Island_  
_New York_

Maddy curiously stared at the letter, did all letters look like that? She didn't think so but she wasn't entirely sure. She opened the envelope which had a wax seal over the flap to seal it closed. She slowly unfolded the first of three letters.

 _HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY_  
_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_  
_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,_  
_Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_  
_Dear Ms. Mender,_  
_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._  
_Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July._  
_Yours sincerely,_  
_Minerva McGonagall_  
_Deputy Headmistress_

Maddy couldn't say that she believed the letter but she couldn't say that she didn't believe it either. She unfolded the second letter, finding a list of things she would need to go to Hogwarts. Then she opened up the third and final letter. A smaller piece of paper that Maddy recognized as a train ticket fell out of the letter and she set it aside with the other two letters and began to read.

_In order to retrieve your supplies go to London and find the Leaky Cauldron, through which you can enter Diagon Alley to purchase your supplies. Inclosed in this letter is a ticket for your train. In order to get to Platform 9¾ you must walked between Platforms 9 and 10 at King's Cross Station._

Well, looking for the Leaky Cauldron wouldn't be too hard, all she'd have to do is shadow travel to London and search for it. She'd probably be exhausted after traveling but she would probably find a place to stay while regaining strength. Hopefully she wouldn't end up in Russia like the last time she tried shadow traveled a long distance, she tended to over shoot her her destination according to the many times she had practiced before telling everyone that she had been claimed. She'd probably have to be out for several days.

After all of the camp activities were over Maddy and Maude met up and chatted by the arena where Clarisse was practicing with a few other Ares kids. They didn't talk for long and when they were done Maddy went back to her cabin, grabbed a small leather pouch full of Drachmas, another one full of regular currency for the mortal world, as well as a sketchbook, some pens, pencils, some books, the letter and some supplies to light a fire so she could offer up food to the gods, which she stashed away into a bag, an old green one that was probably related to the military in some way based on it's size and the shade of green it was. She prefered this bag to her Camp Half Blood bag when she was leaving the camp because people would occasionally ask her what 'CHB' stood for and the closest thing to something believable she had ever come up with was Camp Howling Buffboon -'Buffboon' was the result of her tongue getting stuck between saying Baboon and Buffon-. She pulled on a dark, knit sweater and a hat just in case she ended up somewhere cold and then grabbed her bag.

She began to concentrate on the Leaky Cauldron, hoping that she wouldn't appear in the middle of a large group of people or in the middle of a street.

Suddenly, Maddy felt extremely worn out and and she opened her eyes to find herself in a sort of alley that was pitch dark. If she remember correctly England was about five hours ahead of new York time so it should've been about 3:30 in the morning if she was even in the right time zone. Upon closer observation she realized she was in a sort of courtyard behind a building, she checked the door of the building and found it open.

When she entered she was met with the smell of alcohol and food as well as the sound of drunken laughter and loud snores. She was in a pub. Maddy took advantage of her control over shadows and used it to hide herself as she made her way through the bar, it was hard but that was the easiest power she had and she needed to get out of the pub unnoticed. She managed to get out of the pub and stepped out of the shadows. She turned around to face the pub she had just exited to find that it was named the Leaky Cauldron. She cursed under her breath as she had just wasted some of her energy on an unnecessary action and entered once again. She walked straight to the bar where a man behind the bar was serving a woman a plate of food and a goblet of a steaming liquid.

"Excuse me," She said to the man. "I've been given a letter for Hogwarts and there are instructions on it that say I need to go to Diagon Alley and I'm not sure how to get there."

"Oh, a new Hogwarts student!" The man exclaimed. "It's rather late, all the shops are closed. What are you doing out so late anyway?"

"Oh, um, jet lag," Maddy said quickly. "I just got here from America. It's about 10:30 where I came from."

"Shouldn't you be going to the American school?"

"Apparently not, I've got a letter for Hogwarts." Maddy shrugged, then yawned.

"You can rent a room for the cost of ten galleons."

"Is that magical currency and can I get it at a money converter at like an airport?" Maddy was really hoping she wouldn't have to do anything that actually involved doing things.

"No, you can't get wizard money from the muggle world. Gringotts is still open, though, they're always open. There's also a muggle to wizard currency converter there as well as some money that Hogwarts provides to those who didn't grow up around magic," the man explained.

"Oh," Maddy sagged a bit at the thought of trying to find anything. "Is there a way I could stay here tonight and pay tomorrow? I'm really tired." As if to emphasize her point, she let out a long, almost soundless yawn.

"Of course, just come back here after you get your money and pay the fee. I'll get you a key for a room," he bent down and stood back up a minute later with a bronze key in his hand. "Here. Your room is number 14 and the rooms are just up the stairs." He pointed to the stairs in the corner near where Maddy had originally entered.

"Thanks," she took the key and slowly trudged up the stairs. When she entered her room she lazily threw her bag onto the floor and collapsed onto the bed, falling asleep before her head hit the pillow.

* * *

 

Maddy woke up to the sound of being yelled at. A voice that she hadn't heard before was yelling at her to get up.

She sat up to get the yelling to stop and see who it was who had been yelling and realized that, while she was mentally very much awake, she was still physically very tired she felt as if she had just carried a thousand pound bag all the way across Camp Half Blood without help and it was agonizing.

"Ah, you're finally awake," the voice that had been yelling at her before said. Maddy quickly looked around but didn't see anything that could talk. She slowly swung her legs around off the bed and stood up, grimacing as it felt like she was slinging sledgehammers every move she made.

"Who's talking?" Her voice came out raspy, as it did from time to time when she woke up still tired, she quickly cleared her throat. She looked around the room once more and saw that it was still dark outside and then moved on to look some more. There was nothing in the room except the bed, her bag, a dresser and a mirror.

Perhaps something was hiding in the dresser? She opened the each of the drawers. Nope. Maybe behind the mirror.

As she tried to pick it up something said, "Why're you picking me up? What're you looking for anyway?"

"Oh, it was the mirror talking?" Maddy asked.

"Of course. What else would be talking? Have you never seen a talking mirror before?"

"No, I have. I'm just very tired." She briefly remembered a few years ago when Maude had managed to enchant one of the more annoying children of Aphrodite's mirrors to shoot snide remarks at whoever was using it.

"Well, you shouldn't be. You were asleep for nineteen hours!" So it was about ten at night. Maddy scowled at the mirror, grabbed a tiny chunk of Ambrosia and threw it into her mouth so that her body wouldn't be so exhausted. A small smile crept across her face as the taste of caramel spread throughout her mouth and her body became less heavy. She then grabbed her bag and ran out of the small room, down the stairs and to the man who helped her the previous night.

"How do I get to Gringotts and Diagon Alley and when do the shops close?" She quickly asked.

"I have to show you how to get into Diagon Alley, which is where Gringotts is -its a big, white marble building. Impossible to miss it- and most shops close in an hour."

"Okay, show me," Maddy said impatiently, the man nodded and walked to the door that led behind the Leaky Cauldron, then went over to the brick wall and tapped out a pattern. The wall opened up into an archway, revealing a long street bustling with people. Maddy quickly thanked the man and ran down the street, thankful that she was thin and extremely agile so she could just slip right between the people. She stopped at a huge building made of white marble, like the man had described to her, with a small man in a scarlet uniform standing outside of it. Maddy assumed he was some sort of goblin, she'd never seen one but he sort of matched the description. He opened the large doors and Maddy found herself facing another set of doors. These doors had a plaque on one of them reading:

 _'Enter, stranger, but take heed_  
_'Of what awaits the sin of greed,_  
_'For those who take, but do not earn,_  
_'Must pay most dearly in their turn._  
_'So if you seek beneath our floors_  
_'A treasure that was never yours,_  
_'Thief, you have been warned, beware_  
_'Of finding more than treasure there.'_

Maddy might have found this warning rather ominous if she had not grown up around the prophecies that the Oracle of Delphi spat out from time to time. She opened the doors and entered the large building. The ceiling was rounded and reached far too far above the ground and it was filled with goblins doing a variety of tasks, some were weighing different types of stones such as rubies and gold, some were filling out paperwork and some were counting coins -Maddy noticed three types, a large gold type, a slightly smaller silver type and an even smaller bronze type. There was one goblin who was seeing people, a short line of one person stood in front of them and Maddy walked over there. She waited a few minutes until the person ahead of her was led away by another goblin named Griphook and stepped forward as the goblin barked out a sharp 'next!'

She stood on the tips of her toes and even then could only just barely see over the edge of the tall podium the goblin that sat at it. "I heard that Hogwarts provides money for first years."

"Name."

"Madeline Mender," she said, still trying to see over the podium and saw that the goblin had grabbed a large book and began to scroll through it.

"There's no Madeline Mender."

"Oh, but I don't have any wizard money."

The goblin pulled out another, even larger book with the letter 'M' engraved in the front and he flipped through it, then said, "Says here your mother works for the Ministry of Magic and you're a pureblood. Hogwarts doesn't supply money to those with live magical family members."

"Is there somewhere I can convert my non-magical money into wizard money?" Maddy asked, hopefully.

"Yes."

"Does it take American dollars?"

"Yes."

"Where is it?"

The goblin pointed to a section of goblins who were all weighing coins with stones then harshly snapped, "Next!"

Maddy walked over to the section and said to one of the goblins, "This is where I can convert money, right?"

"Yes," the goblin replied. "Hand over the money you wish to be converted." Maddy handed over her small bag of American money and he dropped it in his scale, messed around with it quite a lot then handed Maddy a different sack of money.

"Thank you," she said as she took the sack and left the large bank. She pulled the letter out of the pocket of her baggy pants and quickly skimmed it, deciding to get a wand first.

She entered a small shop with ' _Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C._ ' written on the window. She was greeted by the tinkling of a small bell and an old man with pale, wide eyes that reminded Maddy of moons that she found it rather eerie.

"Good evening," he said in a soft voice.

"Uh, hi," Maddy replied a little awkwardly.

"New Hogwarts student?" He asked, though he seemed to already know the answer, she suspected this man was Ollivander.

"Yeah."

"Name?"

"Maddy Mender."

"Are you related to pureblood Menders?" He asked curiously. "I believe only one of them is the correct age to have a child at Hogwarts and she does have a daughter starting her seventh year. Eleanor and Alexandria."

"I don't know, I haven't met any of my family," she shrugged, though she assumed that she was. Sure, she'd met Hades once but other than that, her statement was completely true.

"A shame, now, which is your wand hand?"

"I'm left handed."

"Hold out your left arm then," Ollivander said. Maddy did so and he flicked a long, lightly coloured stick -probably his wand- and several tape measurers began to fly around her as he continued to talk while flitting around the shop, going to each of the large bookshelves and pulling out small, thin boxes.

"Every Ollivander wand contains a powerful magical substance. Unicorn hairs, dragon heartstrings and phoenix tail feathers are used most often, as well as a variety of woods. No two wands are the same, just as no two magical animals or trees are the same, so, of course, you won't get good results from another wizard's wand." Suddenly the tape measurers curled up and flew back to where they had been originally placed as Ollivander stepped over to her with a stack of wands. "Try this. Aspen, unicorn hair, 12 inches," he opened the top box and handed a slim, pure white wand to Maddy. "Go on. Give it a wave."

She did and a green fire suddenly lit up on the floor, almost burning one of the many shelves before Ollivander extinguished the fire. "Not that one," he snatched the wand out of her hand and replaced it with another lightly coloured wand, this one had an intricate handle. "Ash, unicorn hair, 11⅔ inches." This time a vase burst and the process repeated several more times until Ollivander handed her a black wand -obviously painted- with thin white designs intricately painted on, made of yew and dragon heartstring at 10¼ inches. She waved it around and purple sparks flew out of it in a gentle shower.

"A good wand indeed, I hand painted it about three years ago. It can be temperamental but it is quite strong." He walked over to the counter and said. "That'll be seven galleons." Maddy put the dark wand down on the counter as she pulled the small bag of wizard money and opened it up. "Galleons are the gold ones," he said and Maddy quickly pulled out seven of the gold coins. Maddy made her shopping experience go by as quickly as it could -although she did stop to get a dark screech owl that she named Melinoe- and she went back to the Leaky Cauldron, payed the man who worked there and had a short conversation with him after she ordered some food, some of which she threw into the fire that was lit in the pub, where she learned that he was named Tom.

Afterwards, she left the Leaky Cauldron, found an empty area and shadow traveled back to Camp Half Blood. But of course she didn't have the luck she had when she was going to the Leaky Cauldron and ended up in somewhere in South America. She tried a few more times, getting closer each time until she popped up back in her cabin, thoroughly exhausted.


	2. Arrival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read the first chapter. I would like to say that once the Philosopher's Stone is done I'm going to post some character profiles because there are some things about the characters that could be a bit confusing or might not be brought up in the story. Everything that's important about them will be mentioned in the story but there will be some facts like what their wands are made of, where they grew up, what type of family the belong to, etcetera.
> 
> Harry Potter, the characters of Harry Potter and the basic plot line of this fanfiction belong to J.K. Rowling, while Percy Jackson, Percy Jackson characters and the majority of events relating to Percy Jackson belong to Rick Riordan.
> 
> Also, I was planning to update this every Friday but I am unable to update tomorrow, so Thursday it is! However, after this chapter they will be released on Fridays.

 

**Chapter 2: Arrival**

Maddy had managed to get to Platform 9¾ in time, though it was by a small margin of time, only about one minute, that she had to get onto the Hogwarts Express. She appeared to have the least amount of things out of all the other students who were carrying large trunks and rowdy, caged animals but all Maddy had was her bag -which she had managed to get Maude to expand the inside so she could fit all of her things in it- and Melinoe, who was very well mannered and perched on top of her full bag.

Right after she boarded the train it began to move, she wavered a bit and grabbed the walls, letting go once she felt steady on her feet and began looking for a compartment. Unfortunately, all of them were full of people, as Maddy had expected, except for one that only had two people in it, two boys, one with unruly black hair and the other with bright red hair.

She, a little awkwardly, slid open the door and said, "Can I sit here? All the other compartments are full."

"Of course," the ravenette said and the redheaded boy nodded, though they both seemed rather apprehensive about it. It probably had something to do with the fact that ever since she had been claimed she always gave off a feeling of doom or death with very little control over it. She looked at them both, her blood ran cold when she saw a lightning shaped scar on the black haired boy's forehead, there was something off about it but she couldn't tell what. It bothered her.

"Thanks," Maddy fully entered the compartment and closed the door, sitting down beside the redhead and slid her bag off of her shoulder. It made a thud as it landed on the seat. "I'm Maddy." She said quickly when she noticed both of the boys gawking at her owl, who was still sitting on top of her bag.

"Harry," the black haired boy responded first. "And this is Ron," he gestured to the redhead.

"Nice to meet you two," she said to the boys. She turned to Ron, who was still gawking at Melinoe, who was pecking under her wing. "Got a problem with my owl?" Maddy raised an eyebrow and smirked, amused.

"I've never seen an owl that's uncaged act like that," Ron said. "How'd you get it to stay so calm?"

"I've got a bit of a knack at training screech owls," she said and it was fairly true. For as long as she could remember all animals would avoid her except for screech owls which she would actually be able to _communicate_ with them and they began to do what she said about a year ago. She wasn't sure why, although Annabeth had suggested that it might be because screech owls were often associated with death, which made sense to Maddy and is also why she named her owl after her half sister, the goddess of ghosts.

"Cool!" Harry grinned.

"Yeah, I guess it is pretty cool," Maddy smiled as she ran her finger around Melinoe's head in fast circles.

"Where're you from?" Ron asked. "You're not English."

"Oh, yeah. I'm actually American."

"Why aren't you going to the school in American then?"

"Well, I guess I am English or something. Apparently my mom works at the Ministry of Magic here. I don't really know since I'm an orphan, though. All I know for sure is that I'm half Greek," she quickly explained.

"Oh," Ron said awkwardly.

"My parents aren't dead or anything." She quickly said.

After that it was kind of awkward, given that Maddy had found out that that both of Harry's parents were dead and he had to grow up with his fairly abusive family -maybe she shouldn't have added in the part about her parents not being dead, though her dad could technically be counted as dead since he's the god of the underworld- but it soon lightened up as they began to talk about other things like the fact that Harry was apparently famous and Ron's comically large family.

"I've got five older brothers," he said gloomily. "I've got a lot to live up to, Bill and Charlie already graduated -Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of the quidditch team- and now Percy's a prefect and even though Fred and George mess around a lot they still get good marks _and_ their funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the rest of them. You never get anything knew with that many older brothers, even my wand is a hand-me-down. It used to be Charlie's, my rat used to be Percy's and my robes used to be Bill's."

He shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out a fat, grey rat. "His name's Scabbers and he's useless."

"Okay, I'm going to change the subject real quick," Maddy interjected. "What's quidditch?" Ron gasped.

"It's the _best_ sport!" he exclaimed, then excitedly launched into a detailed explanation on how the game worked.

"It's not a sport that we _have_ to play at Hogwarts is it?" Maddy asked nervously.

"No," Ron shook his head and Maddy breathed a sigh of relief. "We do have to take flying lessons though." Maddy paled.

"Is there a way to get out of that without flat out skipping?" Ron shrugged.

"Flying seems amazing," Harry said almost dreamily. "And quidditch sounds awesome!"

"It is!" Ron grinned.

"I personally don't see the appeal, but whatever you like, sure," Maddy said.

"Do you like any sports?" Ron asked.

"I do like Capture the Flag and the rock climbing wall at the camp I go to," she grinned, happy to join in on their sport talk in an equally excited manner. The two looked at her weirdly. "Are those weird sports? I admit, I don't really like watching them but their very fun to play."

"Isn't capture the flag a children's game?" Harry asked.

"Not the way my camp does it. You have to have a certain amount of skills or be a certain age. Normally you have to be twelve to start playing, but it's not uncommon for people who've been there for a long time to begin playing at around the age of eight, that's when I started playing." The two stared blankly at her. "Want me to explain?"

"Sure," Harry nodded.

Maddy began to explain similarly to how Ron explained how quidditch worked, of course she left off the parts about demigod related things.

"That does seem pretty fun," Ron said and the three of them began to move onto other subjects, they were interrupted at half past twelve by a woman pushing a cart stacked with strange foods.

"Anything off the trolley dears?" She asked.

Harry lept to his feet while Maddy and Ron stayed seated. Ron's ears went pink as he pulled out a lumpy paper bag and muttered something about having brought his own sandwiches, Maddy stayed because she didn't want to waste her money as she didn't have any source of income.

Harry came back into the compartment with his arms full of some of each of the foods. Ron gawked as he dropped the sweets onto the empty seat and sat back down beside the pile.

"Hungry?" Ron asked.

"Starving," Harry nodded as he unwrapped one of the candies.

Ron pulled four sandwiches out of the lumpy paper bag and began to take them apart, saying how his mum always forgot that he hates corned beef.

"Swap you," Harry held out one of his sweets, Ron protested at first but then accepted the deal. Soon all three of them were digging into the pile, seated on the floor -Maddy's idea- to make it easier to get to the sweets, and they were discussing a variety of topics, they easily jumped from muggles, to magic chess, to Hogwarts, though it was clear the boys talked more freely with each other than with Maddy, who was used to slightly exclusionary behavior towards her.

"What are these?" Harry asked Ron as he held out a package of something labeled 'Chocolate Frogs'. "They aren't _actual_ frogs are they?"

"No," Ron shook his head. "Check the card though. I'm missing Agrippa."

"What?"

"Oh, chocolate frogs have cards of famous people in them. I've got five hundred but I don't have Agrippa or Ptolemy."

Harry unwrapped the frogs and looked at the card.

"Albus Dumbledore," he read off the card.

"Pass me one," Ron said. "I want to see if I can get Agrippa."

"Oh, pass me one too," Maddy said quickly. "Chocolate's one of my favourite foods."

Harry passed boxes of chocolate frogs to the both of them, then flipped over his card of Dumbledore to read the back then flipped it over again and exclaimed, "He's gone!"

"What?" Maddy curiously looked at the card over Harry's shoulder.

"Well you two don't just expect him to stay in there forever do you?" Ron said as he looked at his own card and, disappointed, set it down beside him.

"What-" Harry began but wasn't able to form an entire question.

"Oh, so pictures move in the wizard world," Maddy said, nodding her head. She'd heard of moving pictures but had never gotten to see one. She then opened up her own chocolate frog package.

She looked at her card and she dropped the chocolate frog into her mouth, she was a little disturbed -and slightly nauseated- when it squirmed but that stopped after she bit down on it, detaching a leg.

"Who'd you get?" Ron asked.

"Rasputin," she said and pocketed the card to read later.

"Nice. Oh! I just remembered, Fred and George told me a spell to turn Scabbers yellow!" He pulled out his wand as Harry and Maddy began to watch.

Just as he began to move his wand the door slid open and a girl with bushy brown hair, already in her Hogwarts robes, was standing above then, a somewhat disapproving look on her face when she looked at the trio sitting on the floor surrounded by wrappers and candy.

"Have any of you seen a toad?" She asked. "Neville's lost his."

Maddy wasn't sure who Neville was but a toad seemed like a fairly easy creature to lose.

"No," Harry shook his head.

Suddenly the girl began grinning and excitedly spouted out, "Oh, were you about to do magic?" She must have seen Ron's wand, still held out over the sleeping, fat rat. She stepped further into the compartment and closed the door, then sat down between Ron, who had his back on the seats, and Maddy, who's back was facing the door.

"Okay," Ron said, a bit awkwardly, obviously not very happy at the new girl's arrival. He cleared his throat and began to chant, "Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow. Turn this stupid fat rat yellow."

A spark fell out of Ron's wand onto Scabbers, but other than that nothing happened.

The girl stood up and said, "Are you sure that's a real spell?" Then before there was time for anyone to respond continued to say, "Well it's not a very good one is it. I'm Hermione, by the way. Hermione Granger."

"And I'm James. James Bond," Maddy joked -that was the order he said his name in right? Now that she thought about it she didn't think so, but it was too late to go back- Hermione obviously understood the joke -unlike Ron- but didn't find it amusing at all while Harry snickered a bit. "Jokes aside, I'm Maddy Mender."

"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron grumbled.

"I'm Harry Potter," Harry stood up so he was facing Hermione. She gasped.

" _Harry Potter_! I've just finished reading a book about you!"

"There are books about me?" Harry asked.

"Of course. There are loads." She began to list off the books Harry was in, ending on a book called Modern Wizard History, until she suddenly remembering what she had been doing before entering the trio's compartment, and quickly left while telling them that they should change into the uniform.

Not long after Hermione left, the door was once again opened, this time a blond boy with two brutes who would _definitely_ be children of Ares if they had been demigods were standing in the doorway.

"I've been hearing all day that Harry Potter's in this compartment," the blond said. "So it's you, is it," he looked at Harry.

"Er, yeah," Harry replied, obviously eyeing the brutes.

"Oh, this is Crabbe and Goyle," he said offhandedly, gesturing to each of the brutes in turn. "And I'm Draco Malfoy."

Ron snorted and Malfoy suddenly turned to him. "Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. Red hair, freckles." He then shot a look at Ron's old robes and the sandwiches that were sitting beside him, untouched. "More children than your family can afford. You're a Weasley." He then turned back to Harry, completely overlooking Maddy.

"You'll learn soon enough that certain wizarding families are better than others. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort." Maddy rolled her eyes.

"It seems like you might be the wrong type of wizard," she said.

"What?" Malfoy sharply demanded.

"Anyone who singles out someone before even knowing that person is a lower life form, no matter how superior they think they are," Maddy spun herself to face the boy without standing up and crossed her arms. "And who decides which families are better than others?"

"Let me guess," he sneered. "You're a mudblood."

"A what?" Maddy raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, you must be if you don't even know what mudblood means." Maddy looked over to Ron for clarification.

"It's about the worst thing you can call a wizard," Ron scowled. "It means muggle born."

"Oh," Maddy realized that their superiority was based on blood status, but Ron was a pureblood, so shouldn't that mean that his family should be treated well. "Well then, no." She turned back to Malfoy. "And I don't see what the big deal is. Everyone's here because they have magic and while people who grew up around magic know about magic before coming here, in the end everyone learns the same things and is here for the same reason and I don't see why you have to divide it up by blood and then even more by wealth or however it is that you're singling Ron out. It's plane stupid and like I said before if you partake in that sort of profiling your a lower life form with a much lower brain capacity than-"

Malfoy cut her off, partially to her joy as she would never stop talking if he hadn't.

"You better watch what you say or you'll go the same way as Potter's family," he growled.

"Well, everyone dies eventually. Everyone is slowly dying as we live and slowly work our way to our ultimate demise. And by the way, just because I don't know the magic part of my family doesn't mean that the other part isn't powerful." She narrowed her eyes at Malfoy, trying her best to send the feeling of oncoming doom and death his way.

Then she turned back to the candy and opened up another chocolate frog package, thoroughly pleased with what she has just done.

Crabbe and Goyle began to move forward. Maddy snapped the leg off of the squirming chocolate frog and one of the brutes grabbed her by the collar of her black coat and pulled her up onto her feet. She continued to eat the chocolate frog as if nothing was happening.

Both of the goons raised their fists, about to punch her but she slipped out of her jacket, avoiding the hits. She maneuvered around their punches until she finished eating her chocolate, then she wiped her hands to get any remaining chocolate off of them and punched both of them in the gut just as they were about to take another swing at her.

The one closer to Ron gave a yowl of pain, Maddy noticed that Scabbers was biting his neck. The other one used Maddy's apparent lapse in attention to his advantage and began to advance again, however, after years and years of fighting Maddy had learned how to be constantly aware of her surroundings and quickly kicked him backwards until he was out of the compartment. Malfoy and his cronies hurriedly left, Scabbers fell off of the one he was on and landed back in Ron's lap.

Ron and Harry were gaping at Maddy as she sat back down and grabbed a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and popped a grass flavoured one into her mouth and discreetly dropped a handful into a jar of fire she had managed to make so she wouldn't have to light a fire every time she ate.

"Wow," Ron said.

"That was amazing," Harry said in awe.

"Practice," Maddy said, swallowing the bean.

"What kind of-" Ron began.

"I grew up in a bad neighborhood," Maddy interrupted and popped an assortment of the every flavour bean into her mouth, it was repulsive but she'd had worse.

* * *

Maddy was panicking. She and the rest of the first years would have to cross a giant lake that might as well be an ocean, it was probably connected to the ocean. Either way it was large enough to be under Poseidon's domain. She fished in her pocket, she had been smart enough to grab her money before leaving the train, and pulled out a drachma, dropping it into the sea without others noticing, hoping it would be enough to not get killed.

Hagrid, the giant leading them, had called out that four were allowed to a boat. Maddy sat with Harry and Ron, no one else joined the boat, though Hermione seemed to have thought about doing so but ended up sitting with Neville, who Maddy had managed to meet on the train, and two others.

Maddy, Ron and Harry's boat glided through the water much smoother and quicker than the other boats, Maddy suspected that some sort of underwater creature had caught the drachma and then guided their boat in order to protect them.

As the large fleet of small boats docked and the first years clambered out Hagrid lead them up some cobblestone steps to a door. He knocked on it and a woman in emerald green robes and black hair drawn into a tight bun answered.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," he said, gesturing to the flock of eleven year olds.

"Thank you, Hagrid," she replied. "I will take them from here."

As McGonagall lead them into an empty corridor off of the main one Maddy heard Ron and Harry speculating on how everyone got sorted into the houses, which Maddy was quite nervous about. What if she _didn't_ get sorted.

Suddenly someone shouted out an exclamation of shock and fear. Maddy quickly turned to see ghosts floating through the walls. She paled.

How did they get out of the underworld? She couldn't let them see her. They would be able to tell who she was and she couldn't let everyone know that she was a demigod so early on. Or at all.

She bent down under the guise of tying her shoe until the ghosts had passed and McGonagall had come back into the room.

She ordered them to get into a line and they all followed her into the Great Hall, a massive room filled with people and -according to Hermione- the ceiling was enchanted to look like the sky outside. Annabeth would be impressed, she wished she could take a picture of every part of the castle and show it to her, maybe she could get her hands on a camera somehow.

A hat was seated on a stool at the front of the hall, it sang a song about the four houses, then McGonagall pulled out a long piece of parchment and began to call out the names of the first years in alphabetical order.

The first person sorted was a girl named Hannah Abbott, sorted into Hufflepuff. Hermione was a Gryffindor as was Neville.

Maddy was called up just after Malfoy, who had been sorted into Slytherin. She sat awkwardly under the hat as it covered her eyes.

 _Hmm, let's see_ , a voice said in her head as she felt an intruding presence enter her mind. It was the hat. _Ah, a child of Hades. It's been a long time since we've gotten a demigod that wasn't the child of one of the gods of magic._ _Yes, I know about the gods. Everyone here has been blessed by one of the gods of magic, sometimes they're the children of that god but that is uncommon._

 _Can you sort me already?_ Maddy thought to the hat, rather irritably, not wanting to stay up on the stool much longer. She wasn't a fan of sitting up in front of large groups of people.

_Of course. Now, you would be a good Gryffindor, but you will make a great Slytherin. Which one. Which one._

_Whichever._ Maddy didn't see a reason to favour one house over the other, sure her new acquaintances were in Gryffindor and Malfoy was in Slytherin but she would still be able to see people in other houses and she'd had to deal with worse than Malfoy while living in the Hermes cabin -Clarisse before she was claimed, the Stolls, who weren't bad just loud, and several others, seeing as demigods aren't immune to the asshole gene.

The hat suddenly yelled out, "SLYTHERIN!" the house didn't cheer as it had for the other new Slytherins, Malfoy had probably told the entire Slytherin table what she did and who she had been sitting with and defending on the train.

Maddy thought it was rather rude that the rest of the hall didn't at least clap out of politeness. She pulled the hat off and adjusted her hair as she quickly walked over to the Slytherin table, sitting as far away from Malfoy as she could.

She ended up sitting with a group of fourth years at the end if the table. None of them talked to her the entire feast and she was fine with that, though several ghosts did, apparently they didn't know who she was as she had expected, but her radiance of death drove them to talk to her.

"I expect to join their ranks soon," Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, had been telling Maddy about a group of headless ghosts that he wanted to join someday, it was named something along the lines of the Headless Hunt.

"Well, I hope they let you in," Maddy said.

"I bet my rambling has bored you. Now, tell me about yourself."

"Uh, well I don't really have anything to say," Maddy shrugged. "I live in New York and I've never met my mom but I know she works in the Ministry of Magic and that's really all there is to say."

"I'm sure that's not true!" He exclaimed as the Bloody Baron, the Slytherin ghost who was the first to talk to Maddy, arrived.

"Nick, you aren't corrupting one of my new Slytherins are you?" The Baron jokingly asked.

"Of course not! I've never corrupted a single soul!" Nick smiled.

"Perhaps you plan to sabotage the House Cup? You must be tired of losing to me." Nick groaned.


	3. Classes

**Chapter 3: Classes**

Upon receiving their dorm rooms Maddy found that she was placed with some friends of Malfoy, Daphne Greengrass, Millicent Bulstrode and Pansy Parkinson and their other friend Tracey Davis insisted on going to their dormitory whenever they weren't hanging out with Malfoy and the rest of his slightly large group in the common room.

Maddy was the last to wake up in her dorm room on the first day, and the only reason she did wake up at all was because Pansy laughed loudly at something.

She rolled out of bed, her extremely curly, dark hair probably knotted up all over but she didn't really care, she lazily pulled on her uniform, noticing that her plain black robe and tie that she bought had been replaced by a black robe with green accents and a green and silver tie. She pulled on her clothes, not bothering to tie her tie and left for the Great Hall, ignoring the others comments about her disheveled appearance.

In the Great Hall Maddy sat down at the seat closest to the doors at the Slytherin table, putting only a small amount of the provided food onto her plate, placing some of it into her flame jar, quickly ate the remaining food, then laid her head down on the table with her eyes closed as she waited for her head of house, Severus Snape, to hand her her timetable.

"Wake up," Snape growled as he shoved a timetable under one of Maddy's crossed arms. She looked up and saw the greasy haired man looked at her disapprovingly over his hooked nose then walked away.

She moved her arms and looked at the timetable, first she had Herbology. She groaned. It wasn't that she didn't like plants, she actually loved them. They smelled nice and looked nice but she had a tendency to kill them very quickly. It wasn't one of those, touch it and it dies deals, they just always died somehow after at least a day. It was fitting that a child of Hades utterly failed at keeping things alive. Although, she had a feeling it wasn't connected to her powers as a child of the god of the underworld, and just a natural trait.

Maddy lazily pushed herself up onto her feet and trudge across the grounds to the greenhouse. She was the first person to get there and waited in the warm glass building full of plants. For several minutes it was just her and the Herbology professor, Professor Sprout, who didn't talk to her other than to introduce herself and then seemed to make up work to do in order to avoid communicating more with her. People slowly filed in, Gryffindors and Slytherins but not Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs. It seemed nobody wanted to sit near her, except one Gryffindor girl.

She had incredibly pale skin, rosy cheeks, broad shoulders, freckles and curly, flame red hair. A goofy smile was on her face.

"Hi," she grinned at Maddy, who was unnerved at this girl's willingness to come near her when everyone else was avoiding her and her Induced Fear power was probably at full blast considering she was both incredibly tired and irritable, as she was every morning, which meant she had nearly no control over it. "I'm Bellona." She had an extremely thick Irish accent and she held out a hand that Maddy didn't take, though she did find the name ironic as 'Bellona' meant warlike and this girl was obviously anything but violent.

"Maddy," she replied, her voice unintentionally barely audible.

After that the class started, and Maddy found it to be a good class to start off in the morning even if the plants they'd been given to look after as an introduction would be dead the next time they had class, it seemed like a relaxing place, probably even more so when it was empty.

Afterwards was History of Magic, which only the Slytherins went to. She had been looking forward to that class but it ended up being particularly boring as Professor Binns, a ghost, had the most monotonous voice anyone could possibly have and the only thing he did was lecture. She ended up falling asleep, only waking up when someone's bag hit her rather hard in the head. Then, after lunch, she was off to Transfiguration with the Ravenclaws.

Maddy didn't really have much of an opinion about McGonagall yet, she seemed to be a good teacher, strict but good.

She stayed in the library for the time she had free, mostly searching for Ancient Greek books so she could have something she could easily read when she wasn't struggling to read her textbooks. In her search she forgot to go down to dinner and only left when Madam Pince told her the library was closing.

Maddy muttered the password, 'mudblood' -which she despised- walked into the common room and went to her bed where she attempted to get some Transfiguration homework done, but she found that she couldn't concentrate hard enough to read even one page and decided to get some sleep.

The rest of the week was as uneventful as the first day. Herbology in the morning again, then Defence Against with the Gryffindors and Charms with the Hufflepuffs on Tuesday. Then Herbology in the morning for a third time, then Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Astronomy with the Gryffindors at midnight on Wednesday and on Thursday morning there was Charms with the Gryffindors instead of the Hufflepuffs, Transfiguration -again with the Gryffindors- and Flying on Thursday, which Maddy was really, really dreading.

Bellona was bouncing along beside her, grinning madly and talking about how she was looking forward to learning to fly and the potions class they were apparently sharing on Friday.

"Hey, you're acting weird," she said. "Am I annoying you?"

"No," Maddy shook her head, then brushed some stray hairs out of her face. "I'm just not looking forward to flying. At all."

"Why not?" She asked as the pair exited the castle.

"I'm just scared of heights," and that wasn't exactly a lie. With the constant fear of being struck by lightning if she ever did anything more than jump looming over her head it was hard not to be deathly afraid heights.

"I'm sure it'll be fine! If you hold onto your broom you won't fall off."

"Falling off would be good for me."

"Listen, Maddy, it'll be fine, Madam Hooch would never let one of her students get hurt." The two joined up with the rest of the Gryffindor and Slytherin first years where several brooms were lying on the ground.

"Well, what are you waiting for!" A grey haired woman, Madam Hooch, barked as she arrived. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."

Maddy and Bellona ended up at brooms beside Harry and Ron, Malfoy was closer than Maddy would like but she was glad he wasn't any closer.

"Stick up your right hand over the broom and say 'up'!" Madam Hooch demonstrated and her broom shot up into her hand.

Everyone began to follow her instructions, a slurry of voices all shouting 'UP!' at different times rang across the grounds as they tried to get their brooms to listen. Very few people managed to get their brooms up on the first try and, to her dismay, Maddy was among those people.

"I'm gonna die," she mumbled gloomily.

"What are you talking about?" Bellona, who was struggling to get her broom up, asked. "You're doing great!"

Maddy snapped her head over to her friend and slowly said, "I. Am. Going. To. _Die_." Bellona shook her head and went back to getting her broom up. Finally managing to do so after around her fifteenth time.

Once everyone had retrieved their brooms Madam Hooch showed them how to properly mount their brooms without falling off and walked along the rows correcting everyone's grips.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle. Three, two-" Before she could blow her whistle Neville Longbottom, nervous, jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips.

"Come back, boy!" she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up. Twelve feet. Twenty feet. Maddy saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and then a loud thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay facedown on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight.

Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his. "Broken wrist," she muttered. "Come on, boy. It's alright, up you get." She turned to the rest of the class. "None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear." Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him. So much for Madam Hooch making sure no one got hurt.

Once they were out of earshot Malfoy burst into laughter. "Did you see his face, the great lump?" The other Slytherins began to laugh along with him.

"Shut up, Malfoy," snapped Parvati Patil, a Gryffindor.

"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" Pansy sneered. "Never thought you'd like fat little crybabies, Parvati."

"Look!" said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him." A silver ball full of smoke glittered in the sun as he held it up.

"Give that here, Malfoy," Harry said quietly. Everyone stopped talking to watch. Malfoy smiled mischievously, it reminded Maddy of the more sinister Hermes kids, it was an expression she could imagine Luke Castellan making. Maddy hadn't known the son of Hermes well, but she was friends with Annabeth and she knew him quite well, seeing as they arrived at camp together.

"I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find. How about up a tree?"

"Give it here!" Harry yelled, but Malfoy had leapt onto his broomstick and taken off. Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak tree, he called, "Come and get it, Potter!" Harry grabbed his broom.

"No!" Hermione Granger shouted. "Madam Hooch told us not to move! You'll get us all into trouble!"

Maddy stopped paying attention then, extremely glad of all that was happening, though she did feel bad for Neville.

"Oh my god?" Bellona said as she watched Harry and Malfoy fly around in the sky. "Are you seeing this?"

"No," Maddy replied. "Can I leave?"

"No. And watch."

This went on for several more minutes before McGonagall's voice ripped through the air.

"HARRY POTTER! Never, in all my time at Hogwarts." She was nearly speechless. "How dare you. You might have broken your neck-"

"It wasn't his fault, Professor," Parvati said, interrupting McGonagall.

"Be quiet, Miss Patil."

"But Malfoy-" Ron started.

"That's enough, Mr. Weasley. Potter, follow me." Harry, who was clutching the smokey ball, sadly followed the professor.

Malfoy and his group of friends looked triumphant. Maddy just wanted to punch them. Hard. In the face. And break all their jaws.

Madam Hooch came back a few minutes later and the class continued where it left off, Maddy couldn't bring herself to push off.

"Miss Mender," she said sharply. "Why aren't you pushing off?"

"I can't," she muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"I can't go into the air," Maddy stated, looking up at the coach.

"Of course you can. If you're scared of heights, you aren't the only one and I can assure you, nothing bad will happen." Maddy wasn't entirely sure how she could say that so soon after Neville _broke his wrist_ but she wasn't about to say that.

"That's not-it's more complicated than a simple fear of heights," Maddy wasn't sure how she was going to get out of this, and she noticed Malfoy watching, probably waiting to antagonise her.

"Can you explain?" Madam Hooch raised an eyebrow.

"No," Maddy said apprehensively.

"Well, if you can't explain kick off."

Maddy groaned quietly and said, "Okay." She gently kicked off and she began to float. The sky, which was bright blue, was suddenly covered in dark clouds and rolls of thunder sounded as a bolt of lightning struck near the Forbidden Forest. She quickly shot herself off of the broom with a yelp. Zeus wouldn't miss the next time she entered into his domain. The sky began to clear up once she was stable on the ground.

Madam Hooch sighed and moved up into the air to watch the others fly. Malfoy landed and smirked at the daughter of Hades.

"Oh, are you afraid of heights?" He sneered. "Or lightning."

"Both. Why does it matter?" Maddy crossed her arms and drummed her fingers on her arm. She wasn't one to hide her fears, or at least not her minor ones.

"Oh, poor 'wittle' Menders scared of falling."

"Malfoy."

"What?"

"You do realize that I kicked your goons asses on the train, right?"

"That was without magic. I could easily beat you with magic."

"We haven't even learned any spells other than how to turn a flea into a button."

"You forget, I grew up around magic."

"You can't get a wand before you turn eleven."

"I know some spells, though," Malfoy began to draw out his wand.

"Pull your wand out and I won't think twice about snapping it," Maddy snarled. Malfoy seemed to hesitate then pulled it out. Maddy kicked the wand out of his hand and he gaped. "I _will_ break your wand if you pull it out against me again."

"How dare you-"

"What? Protect myself?" Maddy asked. "Better go get your wand before someone steps on it." She nodded to the others who were beginning to land. Malfoy sneered and went to get his wand.

A minute later Bellona landed beside her, grinning like a madman.

"Did you even try to go up?" She asked.

"Yes. It sucked. I almost died," Maddy replied bitterly.

"First of all, stop overreacting. Secondly, what did Malfoy want?"

"I'm not overreacting and he wanted to be an asshole." Bellona looked at her inquisitively. "He was trying to ridicule me for my fear of heights and lightning. I ended up kicking his wand out of his hand. I'll probably get hell for all of that later from Pansy but whatever. I've had to deal with things _way_ worse than anyone or anything here, so I've got everything under control. Probably gonna just skip Flying from now on though. Do some-"

"You're rambling," Bellona sang.

"Right. Thanks. Well, I'm gonna go try to get some Transfiguration homework done. See you."

"Okay, bye." Bellona waved lightly as the two headed in different ways, Bellona to Gryffindor tower and Maddy to the library.

As she sat down at a table in an empty part of the library in hopes of being able to concentrate easier than in a crowded part, a rainbow with a familiar face in it popped up in front of her.

"MADS!" Maude yelled through the Iris Message. Madam Pince shot her a menacing glare and told her to quiet down, not paying any mind to the IM.

"Shut up, Maude," Maddy hissed.

"Rude."

"I'm in a library."

"I can tell. Mads, where are you? You've been gone for a week."

"I've just got some personal business I have to take care of. I'll be back at camp for Christmas, Easter and the summer, okay?"

"But _where_ are you? IMing you is _really hard_ when I don't know where you are."

"No, Maude. It isn't hard to IM people when you don't know where they are," Maddy sighed.

"Okay, fine. I'm worried. You've never been gone this long without contacting anyone."

"I'm in Scotland and that's all you're getting."

" _Scotland_ , oh gods."

"What?"

"I'm jealous. I will be even more jealous if you develop a slight accent," Maude grinned. "Gods you're lucky."

"I can't read anything and I had to _fly_ today. I almost died. I wouldn't say I'm lucky."

"Damn, Mads."

"It's not as bad as I'm making it sound though. It can be entertaining here even if all the people I room with are complete jerks, though I really should be using stronger words for them. I have a friend and some acquaintances. We should cut this off, the librarians getting upset. Listen, when you need to contact me attach a letter to an owl, that's how people communicate here."

"Okay, I guess I can get someone in the Athena cabin to do the attaching part. Just tell us next time you go out for a long time, okay? And keep in touch."

"Alright, fine. Bye, Maude," Maddy grinned.

"Bye," Maude said as Maddy brushed her hand through the rainbow and pulled her Transfiguration book out of her bag and began to work on her homework.

* * *

The next day the only class Maddy had was double potions with the Gryffindors. She was _not_ looking forward to this, Professor Snape already didn't like her and she hadn't even had any classes with him yet.

That morning didn't start of well as she didn't wake up by chance for once, but instead the one other Slytherin first year who wasn't an asshole -she was fairly sure her name was Elliot, but she rarely talked so she wasn't sure- was yelling at her to get up as they only have five minutes before Potions started.

Maddy cursed her inability to wake up on her own and lazily threw on her clothes and grabbed her bag as she and Elliot ran out of the dorm and they raced to Potions, only just barely making it on time. She had to sit directly behind Malfoy, and beside Tracey Davis. Elliot found a seat somewhere else in the room.

Snape shot a disapproving look at the two, and began to call roll, stopping at Harry.

"Ah, Mr. Potter. Our new _celebrity_ ," his words dripped with malice. Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle sniggered. Harry seemed uncomfortable, but then Snape continued with the attendance.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making," he began once he had finished. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death. _If_ you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach." More silence followed this little speech. "Potter!" Snape suddenly snapped. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Harry obviously didn't know the answer, but Maddy saw Hermione's hand had shot up into the air.

"I don't know, sir," said Harry. Snape's lips curled into a sneer.

"Fame clearly isn't everything." He ignored Hermione's hand. "Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?" Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, but it was, again, quite obvious that Harry didn't know. Most of the Slytherins were laughing, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were laughing the most.

"I don't know, sir."

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" Snape was still ignoring Hermione's quivering hand. "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?" At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling.

"I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?" A few people laughed. Snape, however, was not pleased.

"Sit down," he snapped at Hermione. "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?" There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter."

Maddy was gaping. Did he really expect anyone to read the book before school began and memorise it? That was a ridiculous request and expectation.

Snape then began to put everyone into pairs to create a simple cure for boils. To Maddy's dismay she was placed with Tracey Davis, well she expected that as she had sat down beside her but she still hated it. Bellona sympathetically looked over at her. She was paired up with another Gryffindor -a brunette boy.

Snape would walk around the room, watching everyone as the followed the instructions that he had written on the chalkboard in his spidery handwriting, which Maddy could barely even read. At one point Snape loudly said how great Malfoy was doing with his potion, at that point Maddy was really resisting the urge to shove his head into his stupid perfect potion.

Davis had ended up leaving Maddy with all of the hard work, which lead to Snape's ridicule.

"Tell me, Miss Mender," he snarled. "Do you know how to read?"

" _What_?" She blinked at her head of house.

"Can you read?" He enunciated each word clearly and separately.

"Yes."

"Then you should know that you are to add in four horned slugs before the two porcupine quills and before you stir."

"Am I?" Maddy stood up and squinted at the board, slowly mouthing the words as she read along. "Oh." She sat back down. "Well, if Davis had been-"

"Don't blame your failures on others," he sneered and turned away to torture someone else.

"Oh yes, blame me for my dyslexia will you," Maddy grumbled under her breath as she begrudgingly started over on the potion, putting her Induced Fear power on high, trying to get Snape and Davis and everyone else to stay the hell away. She was sure friday was going to be her least favourite day.

After Potions -which Maddy was seriously considering just skipping forever as reading was _very_ important in that class but then decided against it since Snape was her head of house- she went up to the owlery to visit Melinoe. All of the owls except the handful of screech owls flew away from her as she entered the tower.

"Hey Melinoe," she sighed, raising her hand up brush some of Melinoe's feathers in the right direction. "This place is disgusting. I wish I could sit down without getting bird feces on my clothes." She sighed and said, "I hope it gets better here. Magic's pretty cool but the people learning and teaching it all seem to be horrible people. I'll probably never pass Potions or History of Magic."

After a few minutes of playing with Melinoe, Maddy left the Owlery and headed to the greenhouse so she could check on her plant if none of the other houses had a class at the time.

"Hey! Maddy!" A familiar voice shouted as she left the castle, she turned to see Ron and Harry leaving the castle as well.

"Oh, hey. What's up?" She asked.

"We're going to visit Hagrid," Harry said. "You know, the guy who led us to the castle."

"Oh, yeah."

"What about you?"

"I was just going to the greenhouse to check on my plant."

"I think the Ravenclaws are in Herbology right now," Ron said.

"Oh," Maddy sighed.

"D'you want to come with us?" Harry asked.

Maddy shrugged and said, "I guess. My plants probably dead anyways and I really want a break from trying to comprehend large books."

The trio departed across the grounds to Hagrid's small shack. Harry knocked on the door and several loud barks ripped through the air and Hagrid commanded the animal to stay back. Maddy was nervous, dogs didn't like her almost as much as horses, who really _really_ hated her.

The giant opened the door, "Hang on," he said and sternly told the dog, whose name was Fang, to stay back again. Maddy caught a glimpse of the animal and sighed in relief. It was a hellhound. Hagrid let them in, holding onto the hellhound's collar.

"Make yerselves at home," said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight to Maddy and started licking her ears to her displeasure. She really wasn't an animal person.

"This is Maddy and Ron," Harry told Hagrid, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting small cakes that looked like rocks onto a plate.

"Another Weasley, eh?" said Hagrid, glancing at Ron's freckles. I spent half me life chasin' yer twin brothers away from the forest." Ron's ears went red and Maddy managed to get Fang off of her and he began to pay attention to Ron instead.

Hagrid served the rock cakes, Maddy politely declined, saying that she was full and Harry and Ron foolishly took them. Hagrid seemed a little confused that Harry would be friends with a Slytherin -though he never said anything about it, it was fairly obvious- but he eventually seemed reassured as they talked about their first lessons, Maddy mostly staying awkwardly silent, though she did end up talking about her interaction with Snape when the potions class was brought up. Hagrid brought up that Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, could heal dyslexia but Maddy had to flat out refuse since she needed it for her demigod life as annoying as it was elsewhere. Of course she didn't _say_ that.

"How's yer brother Charlie?" Hagrid asked Ron when they had stopped complaining about Snape. "I liked him a lot -great with animals."

While Ron told Hagrid all about Charlie's work with dragons, Harry picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table under the tea cozy. Maddy looked over his shoulder to see that it was a cutting from a newspaper called the _Daily Prophet_. She could only just barely make out what was written.

' _GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST_

' _Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of dark wizards or witches unknown._

' _Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day._

' _"But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what's good for you," said a Gringotts spokes goblin this afternoon._ '

Maddy remembered Ron saying something on the train about someone trying to rob Gringotts, but Ron hadn't mentioned a date.

"Hagrid!" said Harry, "that Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might've been happening while we were there!"

Shortly after that Harry, Ron and Maddy were walking back to the castle for dinner, Harry and Ron's pockets weighing them down with rock cakes while Maddy has smartly -maybe not that smartly, actually- dropped all of the ones she had taken into her jar of fire as offerings to the gods, telling herself to remember to give the gods more of her food than normal during dinner to make up for that and hoping that they wouldn't mind rock hard pastries.

At dinner Maddy heard Malfoy ridiculing Neville, Harry and herself about that day's potion lesson. Honestly, one day Malfoy would snap one of Maddy's nerves and she would actually hurt him instead of just thinking about it. She ate all she could then dumped the rest of her plate into her jar of flames, for the rest of the time she sat in the Great Hall she fidgeted with her Camp Half Blood necklace, looking at each of the ten beads and avoided the small war helmet shaped pendant that would turn into her weapon upon command.


	4. Trolls on Halloween

**Chapter 4: Trolls on Halloween**

Maddy had her first encounter with Peeves that Sunday, she had figured out that Bellona also had dyslexia and needed help with her reading-heavy homework so she had recruited Hermione to help them, apparently the two were roommates, and Hermione was overly excited to help. The three met up in the library, first they worked on the History of Magic homework since neither Bellona nor Maddy could stay awake during the class, then they moved on to start other homework.

As they left the library there was the sound of something heavy falling -Maddy recognized it as marble- and the trio went to find out what had made the noise. They saw a ghost cackling madly as it knocked some trophies out of the trophy case.

"That's Peeves," Hermione said quickly, her voice full of disdain. "He's a poltergeist. Really quite obnoxious."

Peeves was flying around in a really flamboyant manner, flipping and twisting and turning in a simultaneously clumsy and elegant way as he sang a rather obnoxious song in a nasally voice.

Bellona was about to say something when the caretaker, Filch, arrived and immediately began to blame them for the mess as Peeves had disappeared. He demanded for them to clean it up, which they reluctantly agreed to and he marched away, only for Peeves to appear again and continuously messed up everything that they did, while still singing his obnoxious song.

"Shut up!" Maddy exclaimed after a solid twenty minutes of having to listen to him. He quieted down immediately to both Hermione's and Bellona's surprise. "Go away, Peeves!" He quietly floated away.

"How did you do that?" Bellona asked incredulously.

"What do you mean?"

"Nobody can control Peeves except for the Bloody Baron, we heard the ghost talking about it," Hermione said. "I've also witnessed a few people lose their temper at him but he _never_ does what they say."

"Well, I don't know what I did," Maddy lied, she knew full well it was because of her power over the undead, even though she had never been able to use the ability with ghosts -she had practiced raising skeletons and the such before coming to Hogwarts, but she hadn't been around ghosts long enough to try it with them.

* * *

Time passed by rather slowly and Maddy had become rather well acquainted with the Gryffindors, as did the girl who had woken her up on the first friday, Elliot de la Mare, which drew her to be ridiculed by Malfoy's gang as well when she had previously just been ignored by them.

Maddy remained hated by Snape -and the feeling was reciprocated- mostly because of her 'incompetence in potion making' as he put it as well as her 'stubbornness to not fix a dire problem' meaning her decision to not get her dyslexia fixed, and it didn't help that her work was often turned in with little doodles in the margins or that she sometimes ended up drawing instead of taking notes. She still felt fairly neutral about McGonagall, as well as Professor Sinistra, Flitwick and Madam Hooch -though that's only because she skipped every flying lesson-. She quite liked Professor Sprout and wasn't particularly fond of Professor Binns. She didn't like Quirrel at all, looking at him made her blood freeze, there was something _wrong_ about him and she was desperate to find out what, it was similar to the way she felt when looking at Harry's scar.

Malfoy's antagonistic behavior got worse as the days went on, he repeatedly tried to steal her jar of fire and always found something to mock her about, and nothing was off limits. He found out that Maddy had never met her mother and didn't even know who she was and he would often taunt her about her reading skills.

On Halloween morning they woke to the delicious smell of baking pumpkin wafting through the corridors. Even better, Professor Flitwick announced in Charms that he thought they were ready to start making objects fly, something they had all been dying to try since they'd seen him make Neville's toad fly around the classroom. Professor Flitwick put the class into pairs to practice. Maddy was partnered with Bellona, Elliot was put with Neville, Harry's partner was Seamus Finnigan and Ron was to be working with Hermione, which he seemed very upset about, as did Hermione.

"Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practicing!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, perched on top of his pile of books as usual. "Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too. Never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."

The spell was rather hard, everyone was having trouble with it except Hermione, who had probably practiced the spell beforehand, and Bellona.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Maddy said sharply as she aggressively flicked her wand.

"Mads," Bellona said. "You're too stiff, try relaxing. Wingardium Leviosa." She calmly said the incantation and almost lazily flicked her wand. The feather rose.

"It's just so _aggravating_."

"Just calm down, look, only people who are tense haven't succeeded. Think about things that are calming. Flowers, oceans-" Maddy sent her a horrified and angry glares. " _Not_ oceans. Flowers and beds?"

Maddy let out a deep breath and tried again. It managed to hover a bit but then fell right back down, she continued to attempt the spell for the rest of the class, never quite succeeding.

Maddy and Bellona joined Elliot after class and helped her collect her things, which she had accidentally shot into the air on at the end of class, and they all got out just before the first of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs arrived.

"Does Hermione seem upset?" Bellona asked as Hermione ran ahead in front of Harry and Ron, her head down.

"I don't really know Hermione but it seems like she's crying," Elliot said slowly.

"Should we check on her?"

"I'd prefer to be alone," Maddy said. "Especially if she's crying. She seems like the sort of person who would prefer to get rid of her emotions in private."

"We should ask Harry and Ron if they know what happened though."

"Yeah."

They didn't get a chance to ask what had happened and Hermione didn't turn up at all throughout the day. Maddy felt kind of bad that she was missing out on the decorations in the Great Hall as they were really quite nice. There were live bats flying up by the ceiling and the floating candles were encased in pumpkins with faces and designs carved into them.

Maddy had just dropped a baked potato into the jar of flames when Professor Quirrell ran into the Great Hall, turban askew and his face wrought with terror. Everyone stared as he reached Professor Dumbledore's chair, slumped against the table, and gasped, "Troll! In the dungeons! Thought you ought to know." He then sank to the floor in a dead faint.

People began to scream, Maddy personally didn't understand why everyone was so worked up. Trolls weren't _that_ bad. Although, to her delight, Malfoy was among those screaming the hardest.

Dumbledore commanded everyone to be quiet then told the prefects to lead their houses back to their dormitories.

Through the mass of people Maddy saw Ron and Harry rushing out of the hall without the other Gryffindors. Maddy told Elliot to go on ahead without her and, without waiting for an answer, ran off after them.

"What the hell are you two doing?" She asked after she caught up with them -which was quite easy as she was running at full speed.

"Telling Hermione about the troll," Harry said.

"Do you two know where she is?"

"She's in the girls bathroom," Ron said.

"Okay. I'm going with you. Come on. Quickly." She began to run to the girls bathroom, Ron and Harry trailing behind her.

She skidded to a halt as she entered the bathroom, standing before her was a twelve foot tall troll with dull grey skin covering it's lumpy body. It smelled terrible and was dragging a club along the ground. It wasn't anywhere near the most menacing thing she'd seen -in her opinion of lycanthropes was _far_ worse- but it was definitely a little intimidating, height wise anyway.

Maddy looked around the room as she gently but quickly pulled down on the pendant on her Camp Half Blood necklace, it quickly turned into a double ended Stygian Iron spear. She saw Hermione quivering against the opposite wall, looking like she was about to faint as the troll advanced on her, knocking the sinks off of the walls as it slowly moved forward.

That was when Harry and Ron arrived, they were stunned and unsure of what to do, Maddy climbed up the broken skins and up one of the stalls, then jumped onto the trolls head to the boys surprise. She showily spun her spear around then lodged it into it's thick neck.

It began to flail about, causing Maddy to fall off. She tried to land on her feet, nearly managing to do so but she lost her balance and fell over. She cut her cheek as the palm her hand on a piece of the broken sink as well. Her spear flew across the room. She cursed in Greek and got up to her feet and began making her way to it.

"Confuse it!" Harry yelled as he grabbed a piece of the broken sinks and threw it against the wall opposite of Maddy's spear and away from Hermione.

"Oy! Pea-brain!" Ron yelled and threw a pipe at the troll from the far side of the bathroom. It turned to face the redheaded boy. Harry began to help Hermione up and tried to get her out.

Maddy yelled as she ran towards the troll, once again twirling her spear in a rather flamboyant manner. She jumped and used her spear to cut open the trolls stomach, though the cut wasn't very deep -it did start to wobble around as it tried to regain it's lost balance- so she pulled her spear back, placing it behind the troll's legs, and pushed it forward. She moved out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed by the troll and stabbed it right in the head, breaking through it's skull. She dislodge the spear and it shrunk back into the pendant on her necklace.

The three gaped at her.

"What?" She asked, raising her arms up defensively.

"Is it," Hermione hesitated. "Dead?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I don't-"

"Hermione, it almost killed you." Maddy said, but Hermione didn't seem convinced that it was the right thing to do. Maddy began searching for an explanation Hermione would understand, which was hard because killing it just came so _natural_ to her. "Also, trolls barely even have a conscience, their brain is almost literally the size of a pea, which means it only tells it how to get food and reproduce and whatever else it needs to survive. And _that_ means that they are incapable of meaningful thought and can't feel any emotion more complex than rage, it's like killing a bee."

Hermione was about to say something more but was interrupted when Snape, McGonagall and Quirrell entered. Quirrell took one look at the troll, let out a faint whimper, and sat quickly down on a toilet, clutching his heart. Snape bent over the troll, inspecting the wound on it's head. Professor McGonagall was looking at Ron and Harry. Maddy had never seen her look so angry, her lips were pressed so tightly together they had turned white.

"What on earth were you thinking of?" Professor McGonagall said, with cold fury in her voice. Harry looked at Ron. "You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?" Snape gave Harry a swift, piercing look then directed his attention to Maddy.

"Yes, Miss Mender," he almost snarled. "You can't even create a simple cure for boils and you-"

"With all due respect, professor," Maddy interjected, thinking that very little respected was due. "I was the one who got the troll to this state. Harry and Ron helped but it was mostly me."

"Please, Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape," Hermione suddenly said, Maddy quietly thanked her for piping up as Snape was suspiciously eyeing the troll's wounds -which were quite obviously caused by a blade and not a wand- and Maddy. "They were looking for me. It's my fault."

"Miss Granger!" McGonagall exclaimed.

"I went looking for the troll because I-I thought I could deal with it on my own. You know, because I've read all about them. If they hadn't found me, I'd be dead now. They didn't have time to come and fetch anyone. It was about to finish me off when they arrived."

"Well, in that case..." said Professor McGonagall, staring at the four of them, "Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?" Hermione hung her head. "Miss Granger, five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this," said Professor McGonagall. "I'm very disappointed in you. If you're not hurt at all, you'd better get off to Gryffindor tower. Students are finishing the feast in their houses." Hermione left.

Professor McGonagall turned to Harry, Ron and Maddy. "Well, I still say you were lucky, but not many first years could have taken on a fully grown mountain troll and come out alive. You are each awarded five points for your respective house's. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go."

They hurried out of the chamber and didn't speak at all until they had reached where they had to part ways. It was a relief to be away from the smell of the troll, quite apart from anything else.

"What was that spear thing?" Ron asked.

"What spear thing?" Maddy feigned ignorance.

"You used a spear to kill the troll."

"Nope, that was a piece of wood from a broken stall with a bit of the marble from the broken sinks tied to it." She was reluctant to explain about her weapon.

"But it was the wrong colour," Harry pointed out.

"You must've been imagining things because I don't have a spear. Now, I'm off." She said as she quickly departed from them, descending down the stairs to the dungeons.

* * *

As they entered November it became cold, the dungeons were particularly cold as the compacted earth surrounding the walls kept all the cold air in and the ground was constantly covered with frost.

The Quidditch season had begun and Maddy had promised Harry that she would watch his first game on Saturday, which she couldn't say she was looking forward to, although Elliot -who wasn't the type of person who like sports of any kind at all- had agreed to sit on the Gryffindor side with her, so maybe it wouldn't be _too_ bad as long as they got a seat towards the ground.

On the Friday before the match Harry had gotten the book _Quidditch Through the Ages_ confiscated by Snape, so he went back after their potions lesson to retrieve it, Maddy, Elliot, Bellona, Ron and Hermione waited for him to return, which he did very quickly and without his book.

Ron asked what had happened and he explained how he had seen Snape and Filch alone in the staffroom, Snape had been holding his robes up above his knee -apparently he had been limping and Maddy hadn't noticed- and had said something about keeping his eyes on all three heads at once -Elliot, Bellona and Maddy shot curious glances at each other here- and yelled at Harry to get out when he noticed him.

"Wait," Bellona said slowly. "'All three heads'? And you three know what that means?" She gestured to Harry, Ron and Hermione.

"Well, you see," Hermione began. "Before the incident with the troll, Harry, Ron and I went into the corridor on the third floor-"

"The _forbidden_ third floor?" Elliot asked.

"Yes. Continuing what I was saying, in the room we saw a giant, three headed dog guarding a trapdoor."

"That sounds like Cerberus," Maddy said, thinking of the giant three headed dog that guarded the underworld. The other five looked at her. "Do you want help getting past him?"

"You know how to get past it?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's common knowledge that Cerberus' fall asleep to music. Unfortunately, I can't play any instruments whatsoever so-"

"I can," Bellona interjected.

"Since when?"

"I have been in the orchestra this entire year, Mads. Did you not know that?" Bellona asked.

" _No_."

"Oh, also I can sing. If that's helpful. That way I don't have to carry an instrument with me."

"Can you come with us?" Ron asked.

"Absolutely!"

"I'm _definitely_ coming too," Maddy was getting restless, she was used to being able to train everyday and go out and do something -whether it was training, climbing the lava rock wall or anything else- whenever she needed to let of steam but at Hogwarts all she could do was run around the school and it was getting too cold for that.

"I probably won't," Elliot said, then began to elaborate when everyone looked at her like she was insane. "I mean it sounds fun but I really don't want to be killed by a giant dog. Also, I'm horrified of animals so, not really the best situation for me."

"Okay, well I'm definitely going," Bellona said. "When should we go?"

"We should go on Sunday," Hermione suggested. "Almost everyone will be outside and Harry will have finished his Quidditch match."

"Sounds good to me," Harry said and everyone agreed with the time.

* * *

On Sunday, Maddy, Bellona, Harry, Ron and Hermione had the extreme misfortune of being continuously distracted, delayed, intercept or reminded of previous engagements on their ways to meet each other and on the way to the third floor. It had gotten to dinner time and they lamely decided to hold off on the escapade until they all knew they could actually get there, preferably after hours as they had repeatedly been noticed on the way to the door, having to feign ignorance of the fact they were going to a forbidden corridor.

"We should've thought that out better," Harry said on their way to the Great Hall.

"I'm surprised Hermione didn't remember that she had offered to help that Hufflepuff with some homework," Ron said.

"Honestly," Maddy said. "Very uncharacteristic of you, Hermione."

"I was preoccupied," Hermione grumbled as the quintet entered the Hall and Maddy branched off to go sit beside Elliot at the Slytherin table.

"Did you're ingenious plan work?" She asked smugly.

"No. Shut up," she said as he filled her plate and dropped some of it into her jar of fire. Elliot grinned.

"So, what are you doing instead?"

"We don't know yet. We think we're going to try meeting up after hours."

"Ooo, that's smart."

"Shut up, El."

"Any new information uncovered other than what we learned yesterday?" Elliot asked, referring to the groups talk with Hagrid after the Quidditch match -where Harry almost choked on the snitch- and they had learned that the Cerberus was named Fluffy -which made Maddy laugh- Hagrid had bought him from a Greek person -a demigod perhaps? Maybe even a god?- and that someone named Nicholas Flamel was involved. That name sounded familiar but she just couldn't place it. She had sent Annabeth a letter with Melinoe asking her about the name and if anyone at camp knew about him.

"Nope," Maddy shook her head. "I'm hoping to get some information on Nicholas Flamel sometime soon though. I've got a friend back in America that knows a lot about this sort of thing."

"What are you doing for the winter holiday?" Elliot suddenly asked.

"I'm going back to New York. What about you?"

"I have to go to Nepal to visit some family."

"Isn't your family originally from England?"

"Yeah, but about a century back a couple of people from my family moved to Nepal and now the majority of my family lives there. They all live in a really small village and it looks nice but it's pretty boring."

"Wow."

"Yeah. I've already promised to go this year but I think next year I'm going to stay here instead and forevermore. After we graduate my mum'll kindly ask, 'Sweaty, are you going to Nepal this year?' and I'll respond 'no, mum, I'm staying at Hogwarts' then she'll say 'but dear, you live in Hell, that's nowhere near Hogwarts' but even so I will return." Maddy nearly choked on the pumpkin juice she was drinking as she forced down laughter. "What about you?"

"I'm probably going to go to America every year, but I don't do well with planning ahead like that." Elliot nodded and the two dug into their food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason the troll didn't get absorbed into her spear is because it's a creature that belongs to the wizarding world instead of the demigod world.


	5. The Philosopher's Stone

**Chapter 5: The Philosopher's Stone**

In the month since their failed attempt to get past Fluffy they had yet to schedule another attempt to do so again -Ron had suggested doing it during the holidays but Hermione reminded him that she, Bellona, Elliot and Maddy were all going to be gone. Hermione had enlisted Harry, Ron and even Elliot -who would have to look through her family's books- to find some information on Flamel and made Maddy promise to stay in touch with her over the holiday if she found out anything -Annabeth had replied to the request by saying she'd look into it and that she'd probably have some information by Christmas.

Maddy had her things packed and felt a little sad and disappointed that she wouldn't be able to see Hogwarts' beautiful Christmas decorations again until the next year.

She didn't bother going away on the Hogwarts Express, instead she took the opportunity to practice Shadow Traveling by hiding away in an isolated corner of the castle and going away to Camp. She landed just in front of the Empire State building, thanking her luck as it easily could have been _so much worse_ , and caught a cab to Half Blood Hill.

Maddy walked up the hill and past the tree that Thalia had come out of over a year ago. She headed directly for her cabin, dropped her stuff in and then went to find Annabeth.

She found her reading a large book in the Athena Cabin -the first place she looked- an expression of intense focus drawn across her face.

"Annabeth," Maddy snapped her out of concentration.

"Hey, Maddy," she replied, looking up from her book, her finger resting on the paragraph she had been reading. "Welcome back."

"Thanks. Just an FYI, I'll only be here until just after New Years, then I'll come back for summer."

"Okay," Annabeth stood up and pulled out a few books. "I guess you came to me for the information on Flamel, well, he doesn't get mentioned a lot and he isn't Greek, although I think he might be a son of Hecate or related to her somehow. He was at least blessed by her. Anyways, the information I've gathered says that he created something called the Philosopher's Stone, also called the Sorcerer's Stone in some places. Now, I don't know how accurate the information I've found out about the stone is because it's mostly rumours but the themes that show up the most in correlation with it are immortality and the ability to turn any metal into gold."

"That's not good," Maddy sighed. "Do you think my father knows about this?"

"I'm not sure, you should probably talk to him about it, seeing as it interferes with his domain."

"Yeah," Maddy sighed. "Thanks Annabeth. By the way, I wasn't able to get any presents for anyone. I've been really busy, so, sorry. Now, I'm gonna go find Maude."

"That's fine. See you," Annabeth turned back to her book as Maddy left the cabin.

Maude was sitting in a patch of plants, twiddling her fingers as brightly coloured sparks gently flew out of them, creating quite a lovely show.

"Hey, Maude," Maddy sat down beside her friend, causing her to jump and the show of sparks ended.

"Maddy!" She hugged her and then withdrew, a wide smile on her face.

"Your hair is greying," Maddy pointed out. "How much older than me are you, again? Forty years?"

"Four years, and it's a normal thing for my dad's family. He started greying when he was fourteen."

"Oh my gods, Maude. That is ridiculous!"

"Hey, tell me about it. Anyways, how long are you going to be here?"

"Until just after New Years. I'm going to visit Hades sometime, though. I don't know how long I'll be but it probably won't be longer than a few hours."

"Nice. When's the next time you're coming back?"

"Summer."

The two happily chatted, apparently being separated for several months rekindles declining relationships. Maude ended up doing most of the talking as Maddy didn't want to reveal that she had just gotten back from a magic school, it didn't seem like the sort of thing she should reveal.

* * *

Maddy visited Hades the day after Christmas, she had found out that Hades did _not_ know about the Philosopher's Stone and wanted it to be destroyed immediately -he actually went on a long rant about how people can't just escape death and create their own wealth, etcetera, etcetera-. She also met Nico di Angelo, who was about the same age as her, he was younger by just a few months, and the entire time they had to communicate it was completely awkward. Although she could tell that she would want to get to know him better in the future.

When she had gotten back to camp she found that Percy had managed to visit for the rest of the break before having to get back to school. She told him about meeting Nico and about her new schedule, telling him that she was going to a boarding school in Scotland so she could function in regular society once she became an adult as she rarely ever went outside of the camp grounds and only when she was on a quest, which had only happened once.

Percy had gotten really excited about the whole living in Scotland thing and asked if he could visit sometime, but Maddy quickly shot him down by reminding him that he still had to go to school -though he did try to use spring break and Thanksgiving break as excuses to visit that she decided to ignore.

Later on he had noticed her sending an owl to Hermione with the information Annabeth had collected on Flamel in it, she managed to pass it off as a 'Scottish thing' which he didn't really seem to buy but he dropped it anyway.

Maddy had been kind of confused at the amount of time Percy wanted to spend with her, but then assumed it was because he was the only person in her family she knew, other than Hades and Nico, neither of which she knew particularly well, Thalia was a Hunter, so who knew when she'd get to see her again, and she was never able to meet Bianca since she had been on a particularly long quest that lasted almost the entire time she'd been at camp, and now she'd probably never be able to meet Bianca as she had no idea where she was in the underworld. Before being claimed Percy could only be considered a good acquaintance and solely because she had been friends with Annabeth since she had arrived.

"Hey, Percy," Maddy quickly said to her cousin before she had to leave, having already said bye to everyone else. "Um, if Poseidon's mad about me going across a lake can you explain to him that I had to?"

"You went across a lake?" Percy raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. I paid a merman to help me across, anyway, I won't do it again, it was some weird first year's induction thing. Just tell him I won't do it again because I was on the verge of a heart attack the _entire_ time and I do _not_ want to live through that again."

"Got it," he smiled.

"I've got to go, see you at summer."

"Okay, bye. And I will find a way to visit your school!"

"I'd like to see you try," Maddy laughed, imagining Percy rising up from the Great Lake. "See you." And with that she was gone.

She had left at noon, so it was five at Hogwarts, which meant that everyone was back. She had appeared back in her dormitory, but thankfully none of her roommates were in their room, so she was safe. After unpacking she went to find Hermione, who still had Melinoe -Melinoe had returned to Camp Half Blood during the break but Maddy had sent her back when some of the Hecate children approached her with information on the Philosopher's Stone- as well as Ron, Harry, Bellona and Elliot.

She came across Elliot who was staking out in front of the entrance to the Slytherin common room -she had refused to say the password no matter what, so was waiting for someone else to open it.

When Maddy opened the entrance Elliot had swung herself around much too quickly in an attempt to enter and ended up banging her chin on Maddy's forehead -she was considerably taller than Maddy- and the two stumbled away from each other, clutching their wounded parts.

"Sorry," Elliot apologized sheepishly.

"It's fine," Maddy said. "Go on in," she stepped aside to let her friend in.

"I was actually going in to find you."

"Oh, okay. Want to go find the others?"

"Alright," Elliot shrugged.

"Did you find any information on Flamel?" Maddy asked after they decided to look in the library first.

"No, I didn't even try looking."

"You told Hermione you would look, though."

"Yeah, but I 'forgot' to mention to her that I don't know how to read Nepali. I figured she'd find some way that I could read the books and I really didn't want to look, seeing as it was a holiday." Maddy snickered. "What about you?"

"I think I found all the information that we all currently have about him," Maddy said smugly.

"It's not a competition, Maddy."

"Anything can be a competition if you want it to be."

"Whatever you say. Did you finally get an alarm clock? I'm tired of waking you up every morning."

"No, I'll buy one over the summer. Or get one of my friends to send one."

"Do that second one. Your inability to wake up on your own is honestly obnoxious."

"You can say that again," Maddy sighed.

Once they arrived in the library they noticed Bellona, Hermione, Ron and Harry. Maddy thanked the goddess Tyche for their good luck and approached their Gryffindor friends. Hermione was explaining to the other three about the information Maddy had found on the Philosopher's Stone.

"See?" said Hermione to the three sitting in front of her, having them read a passage out of a book. "The dog must be guarding Flamel's Philosopher's Stone! I bet he asked Dumbledore to keep it safe for him, because they're friends and he knew someone was after it, that's why he wanted the Stone moved out of Gringotts!"

"A stone that makes gold and stops you from ever dying!" said Harry. "No wonder Snape's after it! Anyone would want it."

"And no wonder we couldn't find Flamel in that Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry," said Ron. "He's not exactly recent if he's six hundred and sixty-five, is he?"

"You told them to look in the Recent Developments in Wizardry?" Maddy interjected, startling the quartet.

"Well how was I supposed to know that it wasn't recent?" Hermione flushed.

"I don't blame you for not knowing but you could have suggested other sections."

"Alright, fine. But it worked out okay since you found almost all the information and I remembered that I had read about him in this book. Elliot, did you find anything?"

"I was in Nepal all break, so I couldn't read any of the books I could get my hands on," Elliot shrugged.

"You should have told me, I know a translator spell!" Elliot looked at Maddy with a 'I knew this would happen' expression. "Anyway, it doesn't matter now and we've gotten all the information we need."

During Defence Against the Dark Arts the next day Maddy heard Harry, Ron and Bellona energetically talking about what they would do if they had a Philosopher's Stone, then it quickly switched to the upcoming Quidditch match, which Maddy had ended up being dragged into going _again_ but this time she was going to be with Hermione and Ron, at the ready to jinx Snape incase Harry's broom began to act erratically again, so that would be fun.

* * *

"I've never seen Snape look so mean," Ron told Hermione at the Quidditch match. "Look -they're off! Ouch!" Someone had poked Ron in the back of the head. It was Malfoy.

"Oh, sorry, Weasley, didn't see you there." Malfoy grinned broadly at Crabbe and Goyle. "Wonder how long Potter's going to stay on his broom this time? Anyone want to bet? What about you, Weasley?" Ron didn't answer. Hermione, who had all her fingers crossed in her lap, was squinting fixedly at Harry, who was circling the game like a hawk, looking for the Snitch and Maddy was keeping an eye on Snape.

"You know how I think they choose people for the Gryffindor team?" said Malfoy loudly a few minutes later. "It's people they feel sorry for. See, there's Potter, who's got no parents, then there's the Weasleys, who've got no money -you should be on the team, Longbottom, you've got no brains."

Neville, who was sitting right beside Ron, went bright red but turned in his seat to face Malfoy. "I'm worth twelve of you, Malfoy," he stammered.

Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle howled with laughter, but Ron, still not daring to take his eyes from the game, said, "You tell him, Neville."

"Yeah, Neville," Maddy said, not taking her eyes off Snape. "Show up the smug bastard."

"Longbottom, if brains were gold you'd be poorer than Weasley, and that's saying something," Malfoy sneered

Ron's nerves were already stretched to the breaking point with anxiety about Harry, he really didn't need this. "I'm warning you, Malfoy. One more word-"

"Ron! Maddy!" said Hermione suddenly, "Harry-"

"What? Where?" Harry had suddenly gone into a spectacular dive, which drew gasps and cheers from the crowd. Hermione stood up, her crossed fingers in her mouth, as Harry streaked toward the ground like a bullet.

"You're in luck, Weasley, Potter's obviously spotted some money on the ground!" said Malfoy.

Ron snapped. Before Malfoy knew what was happening, Ron was on top of him, wrestling him to the ground. Maddy would have joined in, she really wanted to, but she _had_ to keep on eye on Snape. Neville, however, hesitated, then clambered over the back of his seat to help.

"Come on, Harry!" Hermione screamed, leaping onto her seat to watch as Harry sped straight at Snape, she didn't even notice Malfoy and Ron rolling around under her seat, or the scuffles and yelps coming from the whirl of fists that was Neville, Crabbe, and Goyle.

Maddy turned to the field as cheers erupted from the Gryffindor supporters, Harry had pulled out of the dive, his arm raised in triumph, the Snitch clasped in his hand.

"Ron! Ron! Where are you? The game's over! Harry's won! We've won! Gryffindor is in the lead!" shrieked Hermione, dancing up and down on her seat and hugging Parvati Patil in the row in front of her.

Maddy watched as Harry jumped off his broom, a foot from the ground with the rest of the Gryffindors, then disappeared into the locker rooms.

Maddy, Ron and Hermione waited by the doors to Hogwarts -inside since it was far too cold to wait outside- Bellona -who had been off studying as she hadn't done her winter homework- and Elliot -who had just avoided the match- met up with them to wait with them as well as learn about what happened during the match.

They ended up waiting much longer than they should have and Harry appeared behind them out of nowhere with his broom and a clock in hand. Elliot, Maddy and Bellona jumped.

"Where the hell did you come from!" Bellona exclaimed.

"Oh, right you three don't know," Harry said almost sheepishly. "I got an invisibility cloak for Christmas."

"Holy Styx," Maddy said under her breath, that must be very powerful and it would be very useful.

"Where were you!" Hermione exclaimed, she had been particularly worried.

"We won! You won! We won!" shouted Ron, thumping Harry on the back. "And I gave Malfoy a black eye, and Neville tried to take on Crabbe and Goyle! He's still out cold but Madam Pomfrey says he'll be all right -but so is Crabbe!- talk about showing Slytherin! Everyone's waiting for you in the common room, we're having a party, Fred and George stole some cakes and stuff from the kitchens."

"Never mind that now," said Harry breathlessly. "Let's find an empty room, you wait 'til you hear this..."

They found their way into an empty classroom and Harry hurriedly told the five of them about a very suspicious conversation he had overheard between Snape and Quirrel.

"So we were right, it is the Philosopher's Stone, and Snape's trying to force Quirrell to help him get it. He asked if he knew how to get past Fluffy. And he said something about Quirrell's 'hocus pocus'. I reckon there are other things guarding the stone apart from Fluffy, loads of enchantments, probably, and Quirrell would have done some anti-Dark Arts spell that Snape needs to break through-"

"So you mean the Stone's only safe as long as Quirrell stands up to Snape?" said Hermione in alarm.

"It'll be gone by next Tuesday," said Ron

"Wait," Maddy said quickly. "I know the evidence is piling up against Snape, and I want him to be the person we're going against, but there's something _off_ about Quirrell."

"You're mental," Ron said quickly.

"You can't honestly expect Quirrell," Elliot said.

"Really, Mads," Bellona said. "He's not a very strong person, everyone has to admit that. He's really squirrel like."

"A feeling of something being 'off' doesn't mean anything," Hermione said. "And you said yourself that the evidence is piling up against Snape."

"Besides, he was _threatening_ Quirrell," Harry brought up.

"Okay, fine," Maddy sighed, defeated.

* * *

The group tried to coordinate their times again, but as the exams were approaching they were getting more and more homework, meaning less and less free time. They were all already staying up far too late just studying, they couldn't go out at night or else they'd end up falling asleep in classes that weren't History of Magic. Maddy was having a particularly bad time, Bellona had managed to get ahold of how the books were worded and her dyslexia wasn't _that_ bad so she could do her work on her own, but the buildup of stress was making it literally impossible Maddy her to sit still long enough to read more than one simple word, Hermione would sit with her and read the books to her but her attention often wandered and she'd eventually give up and get the answers from a very reluctant Elliot or steal it off of Malfoy's paper as he was doing quite well in all of their classes.

There were several days were Hermione made all of them meet up in the library, one of those days was particularly nice, and it was tantalizing not just to Maddy but Ron as well.

"I'll never remember this!" He burst out, throwing his quill down and staring out of the library window, a longing expression on his face.

"I can't take it anymore," Maddy said soon after Ron's outburst. "I'm gonna go run around outside."

"But you can't, you're further behind than the rest of us," Hermione said.

"I know, 'Mione," Maddy said, irate. "But I _need_ to." She was impatiently flapping her hands and bouncing on the balls of her feet. Madam Pince was staring at her with narrowed eyes, obviously about to tell her to stop and to quiet down. "Besides, I'm annoying Madam Pince and I can't concentrate. I'm going for a run!"

She quickly turned around and ran headfirst into Hagrid.

"Oops, sorry, Maddy," he said quickly.

"Hagrid! What're you doing in the library!" Ron exclaimed.

"Jus' lookin'," he said, in a shifty voice that got their interest at once. "An' what're you lot up ter?" He looked suddenly suspicious. "Yer not still lookin' fer Nicolas Flamel, are yeh?"

"Oh, we found out who he is ages ago," said Ron impressively. "And we know what Fluffy's guarding, it's a Philosopher's St-"

"Shhhh!" Hagrid looked around quickly to see if anyone was listening. "Don' go shoutin' about it, what's the matter with yeh?"

"There are a few things we wanted to ask you," said Harry, "about what's guarding the Stone apart from Fluffy-"

"SHHHH!" said Hagrid again. "Listen, come an' see me later, I'm not promisin' I'll tell yeh anythin', mind, but don' go rabbitin' about it in here, students aren' s'pposed ter know. They'll think I've told yeh."

"See you later, then," said Harry. Hagrid shuffled off.

"What was he hiding behind his back?" said Hermione thoughtfully, but Maddy was off before she could hear a response, she'd just figure out what they talked about while she was gone later.

She ran out of the library at top speed, disturbing several books and papers to Madam Pince's and several studying students displeasure, then out of the castle, practically jumping off of the moving staircases, too impatient to wait for them to move to the angle she needed.

She ran around the grounds of the school a few times at top speed, exhausted and out of breath afterwards she headed back up to the library.

She sat back down in her seat between Ron and Bellona, probably smelling horrible and making pools of sweat. The group stared at her.

"What?" She asked.

"You were gone for _thirty minutes_ ," Hermione said.

"Yeah, so what?"

"What could you have possibly done in thirty minutes to get _that_ sweaty?" Ron asked.

"I ran around outside for a few times," Maddy shrugged. "I'm energy free now, so I can concentrate. Maybe. Or you guys could tell me what happened after I left?"

"Hagrid's looking to get a dragon," Bellona said, not as in awe as the others were about Maddy's run. "We're going to go see him in half an hour."

"A _dragon_?" Maddy choked. She _hated_ dragons and they didn't particularly like her either. Even the one that guarded Camp Half Blood before the Golden Fleece had been retrieved hated her.

"Yep. Ron went to the section he was in. It was about dragon care."

"How did you-" Ron started, but Maddy interrupted him.

"I run a lot," she said quickly. "Now, were we studying or what." She shifted and turned to her book, she was the most focused she'd been in awhile, she needed to go for a run like that more often.


	6. Norbert

**Chapter 6: Norbert**

Half an hour later the five who had decided to go to Hagrid's hut -Elliot had declined("No, I'd like to pass all of my classes.")- were all surprised to see the curtains closed, and Hagrid called "Who is it!" before letting them in instead of opening the door first, then quickly shut the door behind them.

It was stiflingly hot inside, especially with six people. Maddy took this as a good time to try to practice her Cryokinesis, the temperature dropped by about five degrees to just being very hot instead of incredibly hot, she didn't try to drop it anymore because she might end up freezing the entire hut. She looked around the room and noticed the reason for it being so hot was because Hagrid had a fire on even though it was such a warm day already. What was he playing at? Was he trying to get a heat stroke?

Hagrid made them tea and offered them sandwiches, which they all refused.

"So, yeh wanted to ask me somethin'?"

"Yes," said Harry and the others nodded. "We were wondering if you could tell us what's guarding the Philosopher's Stone apart from Fluffy."

Hagrid frowned at him. "O' course I can't," he said. "Number one, I don' know meself. Number two, yeh know too much already, so I wouldn' tell yeh if I could. That Stone's here fer a good reason. It was almost stolen outta Gringotts. I s'ppose yeh've worked that out an' all? Beats me how yeh even know abou' Fluffy."

"Oh, come on, Hagrid, you might not want to tell us, but you do know, you know everything that goes on around here," said Hermione in a warm, flattering voice. Hagrid's beard twitched and they could tell he was smiling. "We only wondered who had done the guarding, really." Hermione went on. "We wondered who Dumbledore had trusted enough to help him, apart from you." Hagrid's chest swelled at these last words. Harry, Ron and Bellona beamed at Hermione, Maddy stared at her. Did she just use the mortal version of charmspeak?

"Well, I don' s'pose it could hurt ter tell yeh that... let's see... he borrowed Fluffy from me... then some o' the teachers did enchantments... Professor Sprout, Professor Flitwick, Professor McGonagall," he ticked them off on his fingers, "Professor Quirrell, an' Dumbledore himself did somethin', o' course. Hang on, I've forgotten someone. Oh yeah, Professor Snape."

"Snape?"

"Yeah. Yer not still on abou' that, are yeh? Look, Snape helped protect the Stone, he's not about ter steal it."

"I _told_ you it wasn't Snape," Maddy said smugly.

"Yes, but you also accused Quirrell and he put up some of the charms," Ron said. Maddy scowled.

"Besides, if Snape put up some of the enchantments he probably knows the others, except Quirrell," Bellona said.

"You're the only one who knows how to get past Fluffy, aren't you, Hagrid?" said Harry anxiously. "And you wouldn't tell anyone, would you? Not even one of the teachers?"

"Not a soul knows except me an' Dumbledore," said Hagrid proudly.

"Well, that's something," Harry muttered to the others. "Hagrid, can we have a window open? I'm boiling."

"Can't, Harry, sorry," said Hagrid. Maddy noticed him glance at the fire. Maddy looked at it as well, despite the heat of the hut a shiver ran down her spine. It better be a peaceful dragon.

"Hagrid, what's that?" Harry asked.

"Ah," said Hagrid, fiddling nervously with his beard, "That's er..."

"Where did you get it, Hagrid?" said Ron, crouching over the fire to get a closer look at the large black egg and Maddy backed away, hand on the door knob in case it hatched and wasn't nice at all. "It must've cost you a fortune."

"Won it," said Hagrid. "Las' night. I was down in the village havin' a few drinks an' got into a game o' cards with a stranger. Think he was quite glad ter get rid of it, ter be honest."

"But what are you going to do with it when it's hatched?" asked Hermione.

"Well, I've bin doin' some readin'," said Hagrid, pulling a large book from under his pillow. "Got this outta the library, _Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit_ , it's a bit outta date, o' course, but it's all in here. Keep the egg in the fire, 'cause their mothers breathe on em, see, an' when it hatches, feed it on a bucket o' brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour. An' see here, how ter recognize diff'rent eggs, what I got there's a Norwegian Ridgeback. They're rare, them." He looked very pleased with himself, but Hermione didn't. Bellona, who had seemed apprehensive about the dragon as well suddenly perked up and went over beside Ron to get a better look at it.

"Hagrid, you live in a wooden house," Hermione said. But Hagrid wasn't listening. He was humming merrily as he stoked the fire.

Now, they had something else worry about on top of everything else: a potentially extremely dangerous dragon who would probably be able to smell Maddy from anywhere on Hogwarts grounds.

* * *

After breakfast the next day, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Bellona practically attacked Maddy and Elliot, excitedly telling them that the dragon was hatching. Maddy paled, but acted as excited as the rest of them. Ron and Bellona tried to convince Hermione that they should skip Herbology, but she wouldn't hear of it and Maddy was blatantly refusing as well, it was her _favourite_ class and she was _not_ about to be present at the hatching of a dragon, although, unfortunately, Hermione eventually agreed to go after Herbology, and Maddy got roped into going as well, even though she tried to pull the 'I need to study' card but even Elliot wasn't saying that and she was _really_ dead set on passing with flying colours.

After Herbology the party departed to Hagrid's hut. Upon knocking, Hagrid greeted them, looking flushed and excited. "It's nearly out." He ushered them inside.

The egg was lying on the table. There were deep cracks in it. Something was moving inside; a funny clicking noise was coming from it.

They all drew their chairs up to the table and watched with bated breath, Maddy made sure to be closest to the door and was sitting on edge, ready to bolt just in case.

All at once there was a scraping noise and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped onto the table.

The dragon's spiny wings were huge compared to its skinny jet black body, it had a long snout with wide nostrils, the stubs of horns and bulging, orange eyes. It sneezed. A couple of sparks flew out of its snout.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Hagrid murmured. He reached out a hand to stroke the dragon's head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs. At that point Maddy almost bolted, but then calmed down upon realizing that the dragon was too small to do any damage whatsoever, she could easily kill it with her shoe if it did try to attack.

"Bless him, look, he knows his mummy!" said Hagrid.

"Hagrid," said Hermione, "How fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, exactly?" Maddy hadn't thought to ask that, suddenly she became very worried again. Hagrid was about to answer when the color suddenly drained from his face. He leapt to his feet and ran to the window.

"What's the matter?" Bellona asked.

"Someone was lookin' through the gap in the curtains. It's a kid. He's runnin' back up ter the school."

Harry bolted to the door and looked out. He returned a minute later and grimly said, "It was Malfoy."

Something about the smile lurking on Malfoy's face during the next week made Harry, Ron, Elliot, Maddy and Hermione very nervous. They spent most of their free time in Hagrid's darkened hut, trying to reason with him.

"Just let him go," Harry urged. "Set him free."

"I can't," said Hagrid. "He's too little. He'd die." They looked at the dragon. It had grown three times in length in just a week. Smoke kept furling out of its nostrils. Hagrid hadn't been doing his gamekeeping duties because the dragon was keeping him so busy. There were empty brandy bottles and chicken feathers all over the floor. Maddy had to fight to urge to say 'who cares if he dies let the monster go'.

"I've decided to call him Norbert," said Hagrid, looking at the dragon with misty eyes. "He really knows me now, watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where's Mummy?"

"He's lost his marbles," Ron muttered.

"Hagrid," said Elliot tried to reason, "give it two weeks and Norbert's going to be as long as your house."

"Malfoy could go to Dumbledore at any moment," Harry added. Hagrid bit his lip.

"I-I know I can't keep him forever, but I can't jus' dump him, I can't." Harry suddenly turned to Ron.

"Charlie," he said.

"You're losing it, too," said Ron. "I'm Ron, remember?"

"No, Charlie, your brother, Charlie. In Romania. Studying dragons. We could send Norbert to him. Charlie can take care of him and then put him back in the wild."

"Brilliant!" said Ron. "How about it, Hagrid?" And in the end, Hagrid agreed that they could send an owl to Charlie to ask him,

Maddy was extremely relieved at this and even more relieved when Charlie had agreed to it -as was everyone else except Bellona who loved the dragon as much as Hagrid-, but then her heart dropped when she found out that she had been enlisted to take the dragon to the top of the tallest tower to get it to Charlie, she then rationalized with herself that it's be fine, she had killed a giant troll just a few months ago and she'd be able to stop it from going on a rampage if it suddenly turned violent.

During the time they were waiting to take the dragon to Charlie Ron had been bitten by it and admitted to the hospital wing as it had swollen and turned a grotesque shade of green and while he was in the hospital wing Malfoy had apparently gone in to torment him and repeatedly threatened to tell Madam Pomphrey what had bitten him. Malfoy had also taken the book, which was his excuse for even going to visit Ron, that Ron had stashed Charlie's note in. From then on their plan completely revolved around the Invisibility Cloak and Maddy's 'strange ability to stay hidden' as they had put it. They had witnessed Maddy disappearing into the shadows many times, although they just chocked it up to being a natural magic -which was true enough- similar to Harry's experience of magic before Hogwarts -he had told them about the times he had found himself suddenly on top of buildings or when his hair grew overnight after an ugly haircut- which was not true.

Harry and Hermione traveled to Hagrid's hut under the invisibility cloak, while Maddy traveled alongside them, enveloped in the shadows. She had had to reveal herself at some point because they came across Peeves playing tennis in the Entrance Hall, and he always went quiet and stopped whatever he was doing around her, then melted away into the shadows, following the slight sound of feet moving against the marble floor.

"He's got lots o' rats an' some brandy fer the journey," said Hagrid in a muffled voice as he handed Harry a crate. "An' I've packed his teddy bear in case he gets lonely." There was a ripping sound, the teddy bear had probably been beheaded.

"Bye-bye, Norbert!" Hagrid sobbed, as Harry and Hermione covered the crate with the invisibility cloak and stepped underneath it themselves. "Mummy will never forget you!"

How they managed to get the crate back up to the castle, they never knew. Midnight ticked nearer as they heaved Norbert up the marble staircase in the entrance hall and along the dark corridors. Up another staircase, then another. Maddy was glad she didn't have to carry the crate as she had come along to open doors and check up ahead of them for any teachers or ghosts coming their way.

"Wait," Maddy whispered as she drew to a halt and could hear Harry and Hermione struggling with the crate. There was the sound of people arguing.

She peered around the corner and saw McGonagall holding Malfoy by the ear. Maddy smirked, that couldn't feel good or be comfortable at all.

"Detention!" McGonagall shouted. "And twenty points from Slytherin! Wandering around in the middle of the night, how dare you!"

"You don't understand, Professor. Harry Potter's coming! He's got a dragon!"

"What utter rubbish! How dare you tell such lies! Come on! I shall see Professor Snape about you, Malfoy!" Maddy's smirk spread into a grin, Malfoy was being punished and was going to Snape, who wouldn't be happy at all. _And_ he was telling the truth! How wonderful!

The trio walked up the spiral staircase of the tower in silence, Maddy pushed open the door and stepped out of the shadows after making sure no one was lurking.

Harry and Hermione followed, they dropped the crate and ripped the cloak off of themselves. It was uncomfortably cold.

"Malfoy's got detention! I could sing!" Hermione said happily.

"Don't," Harry advised her.

"That was honestly the best news of the year, though," Maddy said and Harry agreed.

Chuckling about Malfoy, they waited, the dragon thrashing about in his crate.

About ten minutes later, four broomsticks came swooping down out of the darkness. Charlie's friends were a cheery lot. They showed Harry, Hermione and Maddy the harness they'd rigged up, so they could suspend the dragon between them. They all helped buckle the dragon safely into it and then the trio shook hands with the others and thanked them very much.

At last, Norbert was gone. Maddy breathed a great sigh of relief, she had been on edge since she found out that Hagrid had wanted a dragon, and her nerves spiked after it had hatched, now the only things she had to be nervous about were the Philosopher's Stone and the final exams.

The three of them walked down the spiral staircase in jovial moods, feeling as if nothing could possibly go wrong. They were proven wrong when they reached the foot of the staircase and ended up being face to face with Filch.

"Well, well, well," he whispered, "We are in trouble."

They had left the invisibility cloak on the tower and Maddy had forgotten to hide herself.

Filch dragged them all down to Professor McGonagall's office on the first floor. Hermione was trembling and Harry was obviously wracking his brain for an excuse. Maddy wasn't particularly worried, whatever kind of detention this school could come up with she was sure she could deal with, although she did curse their stupidity and carefreeness.

When they got to Harry and Hermione's head of house's office it was empty, and when she returned she had Neville with her.

"Harry!" Neville burst out, the moment he saw the other three. "I was trying to find you to warn you, I heard Malfoy saying he was going to catch you, he said you had a drag-" Harry violently shook his head and Neville shut up, but McGonagall had obviously known what he was about to say and she towered over the four of them.

"I would never have believed it of any of you. Mr. Filch says you were up in the astronomy tower. It's one o'clock in the morning. Explain yourselves." No one answered.

"I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on," said Professor McGonagall. "It doesn't take a genius to work it out. You fed Draco Malfoy some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble. I've already caught him. I suppose you think it's funny that Longbottom here heard the story and believed it, too? I'm disgusted. Five students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Granger, I thought you had more sense. As for you, Mr. Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. All four of you will receive detentions, yes, you too, Mr. Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it's very dangerous, and fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor as well as Slytherin."

"Fifty?" Harry gasped

"That doesn't add-" Maddy began but was cut off.

"Fifty points each," said Professor McGonagall, breathing heavily through her long, pointed nose.

"Professor, please," Hermione pleaded.

"You can't-" Harry started.

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Mr. Potter. Now get back to bed, all of you. I've never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students. Not, you Miss Mender, I'm taking you to Professor Snape."

Maddy cursed in Ancient Greek under her breath, her friends sending her looks of sympathy as they left. She already had to deal with McGonagall yelling at her and now she had to deal with Snape doing the same, it wouldn't be anywhere near the worst thing she had dealt with but it was still annoying and a bit frightening.

McGonagall practically dragged Maddy dawn to the dungeons, keeping a tight grip on her arm, then almost threw Maddy into Snape's office.

"Professor Snape," McGonagall said stiffly, her voice lined with rage as she explained why she had just provided Snape with a second Slytherin who had been out and about past hours.

"Thank you, Minerva," he said cooly, obviously about to burst the minute McGonagall left. "I can take care of things from here." McGonagall left and Maddy was left with her head of house. "Would you care to explain why you were out past hours?"

Maddy muttered something about getting help with homework from Hermione, which he didn't believe.

"The truth, Miss Mender," he was calm but his voice was menacing.

"Because I was," Maddy said, unable to find any explanation.

"Did it have anything to do with why Mr. Potter was out?" Draco had obviously told him about the note.

"Yes," she sighed, she wanted her story with Snape to match up with her story with McGonagall. What followed was a long rant about house pride, responsibility and several other things Maddy really did not have the attention span for.

"Do I make myself clear?" He snarled.

"Yes," she sighed.

"Yes, _sir_ ," Snape prompted, Maddy said nothing. He gritted his teeth and continued to say, "I know Professor McGonagall has already given you detention but I am giving you another one. You will stay after class on friday and serve your detention then."

"Okay," Maddy replied quietly.

"Go to your dormitory. _Now_." he commanded and Maddy was quite happy to do so. She walked quickly, and fell into her bed without even taking off her shoes.

* * *

Starting the next day Harry, Hermione and Neville had begun to be ridiculed and ignored by the entire school -excluding the Slytherins who actually congratulated them- once they had found out that they were the reason Gryffindor was in last place for the House Cup. However, there was an opposite effect for Maddy as she had brought the Slytherin house down to within ten points of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff houses.

If it were at any other time Maddy would be indifferent to the attention but she hated it then as it made it almost impossible to study or do homework, which was already _so insufferably hard_. She'd begun to study in her dorm, her dormmates spent most of their time in the common room or elsewhere in the castle, so it was the only place she could study in peace. Elliot often helped her, mostly with History of Magic and Potions as Maddy wanted to make extra sure she was reading her Potions notes and books correctly.

Soon Snape had told her that her first detention would be served at eleven that night and she would have to meet Filch in the Entrance Hall.


	7. Wizard's Chess and Logic's Puzzles

**Chapter 7: Wizard's Chess and Logic's Puzzles**

As Maddy left for her detention she ran into Malfoy, who was also heading to the same detention. She swore under her breath when she realized this and the two walked to the Entrance Hall in a disgruntled silence.

When they arrived only Filch was there, but Harry, Hermione and Neville soon arrived.

"Follow me," said Filch, lighting a lamp and leading them outside. "I bet you'll think twice about breaking a school rule again, won't you, eh?" he said, leering at them. "Oh yes... hard work and pain are the best teachers if you ask me... It's just a pity they let the old punishments die out... hang you by your wrists from the ceiling for a few days, I've got the chains still in my office, keep 'em well oiled in case they're ever needed..."

" _That's_ concerning," Maddy muttered under her breath.

"Right, off we go, and don't think of running off, now, it'll be worse for you if you do."

They marched through the dark grounds, Maddy noticed the moon was bright, but clouds were swarming across it and kept throwing them into darkness. Ahead, she could see the lighted windows of Hagrid's hut. Then they heard a distant shout.

"Is that you, Filch? Hurry up, I want ter get started!"

Maddy supposed if they were working with Hagrid it wouldn't be _that_ bad even if it made Filch happy. Then again, Hagrid did have a very warped perception of fairly basic things like what was safe and what could kill you. Harry was obviously following a similar train of thought as he started to smiled, so he obviously forgot about the warped sense of safeness thing.

"I suppose you think you'll be enjoying yourself with that oaf," Filch said to Harry. "Well, think again, boy. It's into the forest you're going and I'm much mistaken if you'll all come out in one piece." Neville moaned and Malfoy stopped in his tracks.

"The forest?" he repeated, and he didn't sound quite as cool as usual. "We can't go in there at night. There's all sorts of things in there. Werewolves, I heard." Neville clutched the sleeve of Harry's robe and made a choking noise.

"That's your problem, isn't it?" said Filch, his voice cracking with glee. "Should've thought of them werewolves before you got in trouble, shouldn't you?"

"Has anyone realized that we're going against the rule we're being punished for breaking by doing this and another one along with it?" Maddy asked suddenly. Filch snapped at her about it being a punishment and thus okay.

Hagrid approached the group with Fang, carrying a large crossbow, some arrows and a lantern.

"Abou' time," he said. "I bin waitin' fer half an hour already. All right, Harry, Hermione, Maddy?"

"You shouldn't be too friendly to them, Hagrid," said Filch coldly, "They're here to be punished, after all."

"That's why yer late, is it?" said Hagrid, frowning at Filch. "Bin lecturin' them, eh? 'Snot your place ter do that. Yeh've done yer bit, I'll take over from here."

"I'll be back at dawn," said Filch, "for what's left of them," he added nastily, and he turned and started back toward the castle, his lamp bobbing away in the darkness. Malfoy now turned to Hagrid.

"I'm not going in that forest," he said, and Maddy caught a note of panic in his voice.

"Yeh are if yeh want ter stay at Hogwarts," said Hagrid fiercely. "Yeh've done wrong an' now yehve got ter pay fer it."

"But this is servant stuff, it's not for students to do. I thought we'd be copying lines or something, if my father knew I was doing this-"

"He'd tell yer that's how it is at Hogwarts," Hagrid growled. "Copyin' lines! What good's that ter anyone? Yeh'll do summat useful or yeh'll get out. If yeh think yer father'd rather you were expelled, then get back off ter the castle an' pack. Go on." Malfoy didn't move. He looked at Hagrid furiously, but then dropped his gaze.

"Right then," said Hagrid. "Now, listen carefully, 'cause it's dangerous what we're gonna do tonight, an' I don' want no one takin' risks. Follow me over here a moment." He led them to the very edge of the forest. Holding his lamp up high, he pointed down a narrow, winding earth track that disappeared into the thick black trees. A light breeze lifted their hair as they looked into the forest. "Look there," said Hagrid, "see that stuff shinin' on the ground? Silvery stuff?"

" _Unicorn blood_!" Maddy suddenly exclaimed to the others alarm.

"Exactly," Hagrid nodded. "There's a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat. This is the second time in a week. I found one dead last Wednesday. We're gonna try an' find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery."

"And what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?" said Malfoy, unable to keep the fear out of his voice.

"There's nothin' that lives in the forest that'll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang," said Hagrid. "An' keep ter the path. Right, now, we're gonna split inter two parties an' follow the trail in diff'rent directions. There's blood all over the place, it must've bin staggerin' around since last night at least."

"I want Fang," said Malfoy quickly, looking at Fang's long teeth.

"All right, but I warn yeh, he's a coward," said Hagrid. "So me, Harry, an' Hermione'll go one way an' Draco, Neville, Maddy an' Fang'll go the other. Now, if any of us finds the unicorn, we'll send up green sparks, right? Get yer wands out an' practice now. That's it. An' if anyone gets in trouble, send up red sparks, an' we'll all come an' find yeh, so, be careful. Let's go."

Maddy, though upset she'd have to be with Malfoy, was glad she got Fang, even though she didn't have the ability to control animals under her father's domain for the most part -she wasn't quite sure if she was just persuasive with screech owls or if she commanded them- it was comforting having a hellhound with her. She beat Malfoy to standing right next to Fang, but he ended up going on the other side of him. They walked in silence -except Malfoy was constantly muttering about having serve detention in the Forbidden Forest and Neville was whimpering a bit- with their eyes glued to the ground.

At one point Maddy did notice Malfoy move from his spot beside Fang and began walking behind Neville. She looked up and saw him with his arm outstretched and a devilish smile on his face. Maddy hit him -not hard, or at least not intentionally hard- and he fell over, scowling at Maddy as he clutched his arm.

"What was that for!" He snarled.

"You know what it was for!" Maddy shot back, Neville was still intently looking at the ground.

"Well you didn't have to hit me so hard!"

"I barely touched you! It's not my fault your a little shrimp!"

"Are you implying that I'm weak?"

"I just barely touched you and you _fell over what else would I be implying_!"

"You hit me really hard!" Malfoy furiously began to pull up his sleeve, revealing a dark spot the size of Maddy's fist on Malfoy's arm. "Look! I've already got a bruise!"

"That means nothing. I get bruises and cuts all the time without feeling anything!" The two argued until Maddy decided that Malfoy would not back down and it was easier to just ignore him.

They walked for nearly half an hour, deeper and deeper into the forest, until the path became almost impossible to follow because the trees were so thick, Maddy had also spotted some of the unicorn blood and it seemed to be getting thicker as well.

She looked up, massaging a kink in her neck, as she noticed a pool of blood. She then noticed a unicorn lying on the ground, dead.

"Wait," she stopped her two classmates and pointed. "It's dead."

Maddy took one step toward it when a slithering sound made her freeze where she stood as she began to clutch for her pendant. A bush on the edge of the clearing quivered. Then, out of the shadows, a hooded figure came crawling across the ground like some stalking beast. Maddy, Malfoy, Neville and Fang stood transfixed. The cloaked figure reached the unicorn, lowered its head over the wound in the animal's side, and began to drink its blood.

Malfoy let out a bloodcurdling scream and bolted, as did Fang. Neville shot up red sparks in the air but other than that appeared catatonic. Maddy was standing at the ready, her hand clasped around her spear pendant.

The figure sipped the blood and was only stopped by the familiar sound of hooves. Suddenly, a centaur burst through the trees and the figure ran away.

"Are you alright?" The centaur asked.

"Yeah," Maddy nodded and dropped her hand. "What was that?" The centaur didn't reply.

"You better go back to Hagrid," he said eventually. "The forest is not safe. Mars is bright tonight," this statement sent shivers through Maddy, she knew that that meant violence was more likely to happen than normal if it had anything to do with Ares. "I can take you both to him. I'm Firenze."

"Maddy. And this is Neville." The three of them began to walked. "What was that thing?" She tried asking again.

There was no response for a long time, then Firenze said, "Do you not know what unicorn blood is used for?"

"It brings life, even to people on the verge of death."

"And do you know the drawback?"

"Whoever consumes the blood will live a cursed life because of the pure nature of the unicorn."

"Exactly."

"How does that answer my question?"

"Do you know what is in Hogwarts at this moment?"

"The Philosopher's Stone."

"Can you think of anyone who would want to become immortal?" Firenze asked.

"Lots of people, actually. Do you have anyone in particular in mind?"

"We do not speak his name."

"Oh, him," Maddy was apprehensive of saying Voldemort's name as names _did_ have power, though to her knowledge they only worked with monsters and gods but you could never be too safe -she wouldn't say You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or anything like that as that was completely ridiculous.

"Maddy! Neville!" Hagrid exclaimed as he approached, followed by the others. "Are you lot alright?"

"Yeah," Neville nodded.

"We're fine," Maddy said. "The unicorn's dead, by the way. Back that way." She gestured to where they had just come from.

"This is where I leave you," Firenze stated as Hagrid hurried off to examine the unicorn. "You are safe now."

* * *

On their way back to the castle Maddy explained to Harry and Hermione what had happened. They immediately jumped to the conclusion that Snape was working for Voldemort, but Maddy was still unsure of that claim. Maddy soon had to separate from her friends, glad that Malfoy was behind her.

When she got to the entrance of the dungeon common room she saw Elliot arguing with Snape.

"It's disgusting, bigoted, promotes untrue opinions on 'blood purity' and you do realize that there are muggle born people in Slytherin, right!" She heard Elliot yell, she had probably ended up camping out outside of the common room and Snape had caught her.

"Miss de la Mare-" Snape was about to retaliate but was stopped when Elliot began yelling again.

"Who the hell comes up with the passwords because they need to sacked since they are obviously only concerned with the incredibly stupid notion of blood purity and I don't care if you choose the passwords! Even though you are my professor and my head of house if you came up with this password you deserve to hear this!"

"Miss de la Mare, I can assure you that I did not choose the password," Snape said, Maddy was genuinely surprised that he wasn't yelling right back.

"But you know about that password! I've seen you in there! You've had to have said it to get in there! Why didn't you change it or punish the person who did come up with this for being an arsehole!"

"De la Mare!" He snapped. "I understand that you're upset but you do _not_ use that sort of language towards your superior."

"What the hell are you doing?" Malfoy had caught up to Maddy.

"Shut up, they're arguing about the password," she said.

"Snape better be winning, there's nothing wrong with the password and it's obnoxious how that nutter is constantly camped outside of the entrance."

"Malfoy."

"What?"

Maddy suddenly and aggressively wrapped her arm around Malfoy's neck and pulled him down so his head was level with hers, which was very uncomfortable for him as he was much taller than Maddy. "Say anything like that again and I'm going to rip off your underwear and stick it in your mouth."

"You can't do that."

"Watch me me." The two stood in silence as Elliot continued to argue with Snape until he dragged her away and Maddy threw Malfoy out in front of her and they went into the common room and straight to their dormitories. Maddy quickly changed and fell asleep almost immediately.

* * *

Final exams had come around and Maddy honestly had no clue how she had managed to get through the written exams, however she did fine with the practical exams, the only things she had trouble doing was brewing the potion -though she didn't do _too_ terrible on that- and the light spell, _Lumos Maxima_. The last exam was History of Magic and, to Maddy's utter dismay, she was unable to finish it.

"That was far easier than I thought it would be," said Hermione as Maddy and Elliot joined their Gryffindor friends in the crowds flocking out onto the sunny grounds. "I needn't have learned about the 1637 Werewolf Code of Conduct or the uprising of Elfric the Eager."

"I couldn't even finish," Maddy said gloomily. "Do you think I won't have to take the exams next year if I rip my eyes out?"

"They'll probably find some way to make you take it," Ron said, equally as gloomy.

"As long as I don't have to _read_ it I'm fine. I think I could find some way to murder my eyes without permanently affecting them."

"Why are you thinking about the exams for next year already?" Bellona asked, she was uncharacteristically grumpy.

"Because I can, Bell, fight me."

"Too tired."

They wandered down to the lake and flopped under a tree. The Weasley twins and Lee Jordan were tickling the tentacles of the giant squid, which was basking in the warm shallows. Maddy realized that this was the closest she'd gotten to any body of water since September first.

"No more studying," Ron sighed happily, stretching out on the grass. "You could look more cheerful, Harry, we've got a week before we find out how badly we've done, there's no need to worry yet." Harry was rubbing his forehead, his scar had been bothering them ever since they had detention.

"I wish I knew what this means!" he burst out angrily. "My scar keeps hurting. It's happened before, but never as often as this."

"Go to Madam Pomfrey," Hermione suggested.

"I'm not ill," said Harry. "I think it's a warning... it means danger's coming..."

"Can we just have one day were we can like, just sleep or something?" Elliot asked.

"No," Maddy said. "Unless you count death."

"What the hell, Maddy. No."

"What kind of danger, Harry?" Bellona asked.

"I'm not sure," he replied, frustrated.

"Harry, relax," Ron said. "The stone's safe as long as Dumbledore's around. Anyway, we've never had any proof Snape found out how to get past Fluffy. He nearly had his leg ripped off once, he's not going to try it again in a hurry. And Neville will play Quidditch for England before Hagrid lets Dumbledore down."

Harry suddenly jumped to his feet. "Where're you going?" said Ron sleepily.

"I've just thought of something," said Harry. He had turned white. "We've got to go and see Hagrid, now."

"Why?" panted Hermione, hurrying to keep up, Bellona, Ron and Maddy following -Elliot waved them off as she was trying to get some sleep after the long exam.

"Don't you think it's a bit odd," said Harry, scrambling up the grassy slope, "That what Hagrid wants more than anything else is a dragon, and a stranger turns up who just happens to have an egg in his pocket? How many people wander around with dragon eggs if it's against wizard law? Lucky they found Hagrid, don't you think? Why didn't I see it before?"

"Oh my gods," Maddy groaned.

"What are you talking about?" Ron asked. Harry didn't reply as he had gone into a full sprint and the rest shifted their speeds as well.

Hagrid was sitting in an armchair outside his house, his trousers and sleeves were rolled up, and he was shelling peas into a large bowl. "Hullo," he said, smiling. "Finished yer exams? Got time fer a drink?"

"Yes, please," said Ron.

"I'd like a fire whiskey," Bellona joked, then Harry cut her off.

"No, we're in a hurry. Hagrid, I've got to ask you something. You know that night you won Norbert? What did the stranger you were playing cards with look like?"

"Dunno," said Hagrid casually. "He wouldn' take his cloak off." He saw the five of them look stunned and raised his eyebrows. "It's not that unusual, yeh get a lot o' funny folk in the Hog's Head -that's the pub down in the village. Mighta bin a dragon dealer, mightn' he? I never saw his face, he kept his hood up." Harry sank down next to the bowl of peas.

"What did you talk to him about, Hagrid? Did you mention Hogwarts at all?"

"Mighta come up," said Hagrid, frowning as he tried to remember. "Yeah... he asked what I did, an' I told him I was gamekeeper here... He asked a bit about the sorta creatures I look after... so I told him... an' I said what I'd always really wanted was a dragon... an' then... I can' remember too well, 'cause he kept buyin' me drinks... Let's see... yeah, then he said he had the dragon egg an' we could play cards fer it if I wanted... but he had ter be sure I could handle it, he didn' want it ter go ter any old home... So I told him, after Fluffy, a dragon would be easy..."

"And did he-did he seem interested in Fluffy?" Harry asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

"Well, yeah, how many three-headed dogs d'yeh meet, even around Hogwarts? So I told him, Fluffy's a piece o' cake if yeh know how to calm him down, jus' play him a bit o' music an' he'll go straight off ter sleep-" Hagrid suddenly looked horrified. "I shouldn'ta told yeh that!" he blurted out. "Forget I said it!"

"We already knew _that_ , Hagrid," Maddy said, then stopped. If he had said that so casually in conversation while sober he definitely said it to the dragon dealer while he was drunk. They exchanged glances and began to leave.

"Hey, where're yeh goin'?" Harry, Ron, Hermione, Bellona and Maddy didn't speak to each other at all until they came to a halt in the entrance hall, which seemed very cold and gloomy after the grounds.

"We've got to go to Dumbledore," said Harry. "Hagrid told that stranger how to get past Fluffy, and it was either Snape or Voldemort under that cloak, it must've been easy, once he'd got Hagrid drunk. I just hope Dumbledore believes us. Firenze might back us up if Bane doesn't stop him. Where's Dumbledore's office?"

They looked around, as if hoping to see a sign pointing them in the right direction. They had never been told where Dumbledore lived, nor did they know anyone who had been sent to see him. "We'll just have to-" Harry began, but a voice suddenly rang across the hall.

"What are you five doing inside?" It was Professor McGonagall, carrying a large pile of books.

"We want to see Professor Dumbledore," said Hermione.

"See Professor Dumbledore?" Professor McGonagall repeated, as though this was a very fishy thing to want to do. "Why?"

"It's sort of secret," Harry said, Professor McGonagall's nostrils flared.

"Professor Dumbledore left ten minutes ago," she said coldly. "He received an urgent owl from the Ministry of Magic and flew off for London at once."

"He's gone?" said Harry frantically. "Now?" Maddy cursed under her breath and Bellona began to look around frantically.

"Professor Dumbledore is a very great wizard, Potter, he has many demands on his time-"

"But this is important."

"Something you have to say is more important than the Ministry of Magic, Potter."

"Look," said Harry, throwing caution to the winds, "Professor, it's about the Philosopher's Stone-" whatever Professor McGonagall had expected, it wasn't that. The books she was carrying tumbled out of her arms, but she didn't pick them up.

"How do you know-?" she spluttered.

"Professor, I think I know that Sn-that someone's going to try and steal the Stone. I've got to talk to Professor Dumbledore." She eyed him with a mixture of shock and suspicion.

"Professor Dumbledore will be back tomorrow," she said finally. I don't know how you found out about the Stone, but rest assured, no one can possibly steal it, it's too well protected."

"But Professor-"

"Potter, I know what I'm talking about," she said shortly. She bent down and gathered up the fallen books. I suggest you all go back outside and enjoy the sunshine."

"It's tonight," said Harry, once he was sure Professor McGonagall was out of earshot. "Snape's going through the trapdoor tonight. He's found out everything he needs, and now he's got Dumbledore out of the way. He sent that note, I bet the Ministry of Magic will get a real shocked when Dumbledore turns up."

"Yeah, probably," Bellona nodded.

"Even if _whoever_ is trying to steal the stone isn't moving tonight it's still a good time to try, all our schedules are empty," Maddy pointed out.

"But what can we-" Hermione began but stopped as she gasped. The other turned to see Snape standing behind them.

"Good afternoon. You shouldn't be inside on a day like this," he said, with an odd, twisted smile.

"We were-" Harry began to say something.

"You want to be more careful," said Snape. "Hanging around like this, people will think you're up to something. And Gryffindor really can't afford to lose any more points, can it? And you don't need to humiliate Slytherin anymore." Maddy was taken aback.

They turned to go outside, but Snape called them back. "Be warned, Potter, any more nighttime wanderings and I will personally make sure you are expelled. Good day to you." He strode off in the direction of the staffroom.

"When have I ever humiliated Slytherin?" Maddy asked.

"By not acting like a pure blood supremacist," Bellona said.

"Okay, then I'm always humiliating Slytherin."

"Right, here's what we've got to do," Harry whispered urgently. "One of us has got to keep an eye on Snape -wait outside the staff room and follow him if he leaves it. Hermione, you'd better do that."

"Why me?" She asked.

"It's obvious," said Ron. "You can pretend to be waiting for Professor Flitwick, you know." He put on a high voice, "'Oh Professor Flitwick, I'm so worried, I think I got question 14B wrong-"

"Oh, shut up," said Hermione, but she agreed to go and watch out for Snape.

"And we'd better stay outside the third-floor corridor," Harry told the rest of them. "Come on."

But that part of the plan didn't work. No sooner had they reached the door separating Fluffy from the rest of the school than Professor McGonagall turned up again and this time, she lost her temper.

"I suppose you think you're harder to get past than a pack of enchantments!" she stormed. "Enough of this nonsense! If I hear you've come anywhere near here again, I'll take another fifty points from Gryffindor each as well as Slytherin! Yes, Weasley, from my own house!"

They went to the library after that, Harry had just said, "At least Hermione's on Snape's tail," when Hermione came in, obviously embarrassed.

"I'm sorry, Harry!" she wailed quietly in order to not anger Madam Pince. "Snape came out and asked me what I was doing, so I said I was waiting for Flitwick, and Snape went to get him and I only just got away, I don't know where Snape went."

"Well, that's it then, isn't it?" Harry said. "I'm going out tonight and I'm going to try and get to the Stone first."

"You're mad!" said Ron.

"You can't!" said Hermione.

"After what McGonagall and Snape have said? You'll be expelled," Bellona added.

"SO WHAT!" Harry shouted, Madam Pince loudly 'shh'ed him. "Don't you understand? If Snape gets hold of the Stone, Voldemort's coming back. Haven't you heard what it was like when he was trying to take over? There won't be any Hogwarts to get expelled from. He'll flatten it, or turn it into a school for the Dark Arts. Losing points doesn't matter anymore, can't you see? D'you think he'll leave you and your families alone if Gryffindor wins the house cup? If I get caught before I can get to the Stone, well, I'll have to-"

"Oh my gods, Harry," Maddy stopped him, slightly overwhelmed. "We get it. We understand." He glared at all of them.

"You're right, Harry," said Hermione in a small voice.

"I'll use the invisibility cloak," said Harry. "It's just lucky I got it back."

"But will it cover all five of us?" said Ron.

"All-all five of us?"

"Oh, come off it, you don't think we'd let you go alone?"

"Of course not," said Hermione briskly. "How do you think you'd get to the Stone without us? I'd better go and took through my books, there might be something useful..."

"Harry, thinking we would let you do that alone makes you the dumbest person I have ever met," Bellona said.

"And running's getting boring for me," Maddy said. "But, I guess you don't _have_ to take me along." _I could always just hide in the shadows_ , she thought, because there was no way she wasn't going to _not_ _destroy_ that stone.

"But if we get caught, you'll be expelled, too," Harry said.

"Not if I can help it," said Hermione grimly. "Flitwick told me in secret that I got a hundred and twelve percent on his exam. They're not throwing me out after that."

"Oh my god, Hermione," Bellona started to laugh. "That's ridiculously high, holy hell."

* * *

That night Maddy waited outside the portrait of the Fat Lady, waiting for Harry, Ron, Hermione and Bellona to come out.

The four of them were very poorly hidden under the cloak, Maddy could easily see their feet, but they eventually adjusted it after she mentioned it to them.

"Sorry for the hold up," Bellona said. "Neville tried to stop us."

"And Hermione was terrifying," Ron added. "She _froze_ him."

"It's not permanent is it, Hermione?" Maddy asked.

" _No_ ," Hermione said quickly. All of them quieted down after that except for the occasional whisper to make sure they were still all together as Maddy couldn't see the others and the others couldn't see her.

There was a pause as they came across Mrs. Norris at the top of a row of stairs, they all managed to get around her after it became apparent that she wasn't moving.

They didn't meet anyone else until they reached the staircase up to the third floor. Peeves was bobbing halfway up, loosening the carpet so that people would trip.

"Who's there?" he said suddenly as they climbed toward him. He narrowed his wicked black eyes. "I know you're there, even if I can't see you. Are you ghoulie or ghostie or wee student beastie?" He rose up in the air and floated there, squinting at them. "Should call Filch, I should, if something's a-creeping around unseen."

Maddy stepped out of the shadows and Peeves shut up and went away with the flick of Maddy's wrist, then she submerged herself into the shadows once again.

"What did you do?" Ron asked.

"I don't know, Peeves is scared of me or something," Maddy lied.

A minute later they were in front of the open door to the third floor corridor.

"See, he's already been through," Harry said. "If you want to go back, I won't blame you. You can take the cloak, I won't need it now."

"Don't be stupid," said Ron.

"Who do you think we are?" Bellona asked. "Cowards?"

"We aren't leaving," Hermione said.

"I'm morally obliged to go," Maddy said and even though she couldn't see the other four she could tell they were staring at her, or at least in her general direction. " _Well, I am_."

As they entered the room, low grumbled met their ears. All three of Fluffy's noses sniffed madly in their direction, even though they couldn't see them.

"What's that at his feet?" Ron asked.

"A harp," Maddy said, instantly recognizing the instrument as it was very similar to the chosen instrument of Apollo.

"Snape must have left it," Bellona said.

"It must wake up the moment you stop playing," said Harry.

"Hand it over," Bellona said and Harry handed her the harp. "Luckily, it's one of the three instruments I specialize in." She gently began to strum the harp.

The Cerberus' heads began to droop and it was soon asleep. Harry pulled the invisibility cloak off of the four of them and Maddy sent the shadows that had been concealing her away. Nobody wanted to open the trap door in fear of the Cerberus.

"Want to go first, Hermione?" Ron asked.

"No, I don't!" She exclaimed.

"All right." Ron gritted his teeth and stepped carefully over the dog's legs. He bent and pulled the ring of the trapdoor, which swung up and open.

"What can you see?" Hermione said anxiously.

"Nothing. Just black. There's no way of climbing down, we'll just have to drop."

"I'll go first," Maddy volunteered. The idea of jumping into a potentially bottomless abyss didn't faze her one bit. She leapt down, followed by Harry, Ron, Hermione and finally Bellona, who dropped the flute on her way down. There was the loud sound of barking following her, but she had managed to close the trapdoor as she fell.

"What's this stuff?" Ron asked.

"Some sort of plant," Harry shrugged. "I s'posse it's here to break the fall."

"Didn't Professor Sprout make one of the traps?" Maddy asked, but the others didn't seem to hear her.

"We must be miles under the school," Hermione said.

"Lucky this plant thing's here, really," said Ron.

"Lucky!" shrieked Hermione. "Look at you all!" Everyone looked around at each other frantically, the plant was wrapping itself around them.

"HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO COMBAT _THIS_!" Bellona yelled in a panic.

"Don't move!" Maddy commanded, soon recognizing the plant. "This is Professor Sprout's enchantment. It's a Devil's Snare, you kill it with the light spell." She suddenly cursed. "Somebody, cast the light spell!"

Hermione whipped out her wand and said, " _Lumos Maxima_!" Light erupted from Hermione's wand and the plant dropped them all.

"Lucky you love Herbology so much, Maddy," Ron panted.

"Yeah," Bellona agreed. "None of us pay attention in that class."

"I do!" Hermione exclaimed indignantly.

"We should move on," Harry said, pointing down the stone passageway.

"Can you hear something?" Ron whispered.

Maddy listened, hearing a soft rustling and clinking seemed to be coming from up ahead.

"Do you think it's a ghost?" Harry asked.

"Gods, I hope so," Maddy said under her breath.

"I don't know... sounds like wings to me." Hermione said.

"There's light ahead!" Bellona squinted. "I can see something moving."

They reached the end of the passageway and saw before them a brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above them. It was full of small, jewel-bright birds, fluttering and tumbling all around the room. On the opposite side of the chamber was a heavy wooden door.

"Do you think they'll attack us if we cross the room?" said Ron.

"Probably," said Harry. "They don't look very vicious, but I suppose if they all swooped down at once... well, there's no other choice... I'll run." He covered his face with his arms and dashed across the room and yanked on the door, which was locked. Ron and Hermione followed but Maddy and Bellona stayed in place.

"I hate birds," Maddy groaned.

"Yeah, mate, those are keys," Bellona said. "Harry! The birds are keys!" Harry looked around wildly, then grabbed five broomsticks from a corner of the large room.

"I can't fly," Maddy said pathetically as everyone else mounted one of the brooms, she watched her friends snatching at the keys and dropping them when they realized it wasn't right. She would have been catching those that flew close to the ground but the closest ones were far above her head.

Harry came down several minutes later with a key in hand, the others landing behind him. He triumphantly unlocked the door.

He yanked it open. It was completely dark but the minute the first one of them stepped in it was flooded with light. All that was in the room was a giant chess set. Maddy groaned, she wasn't good at chess and this was probably enchanted in some way to make it dangerous. Hopefully they'd be able to play as a team. Both Bellona and Ron were good at chess and Harry was decent, she wasn't sure about Hermione. It's a game based on logic and strategy she'd probably be fairly good at it if she knew the rules.

"Now what do we do?" Harry whispered.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" said Ron. "We've got to play our way across the room." He pointed to a door behind the white chess pieces.

"How?" Hermione asked nervously.

"I think," Ron said slowly, "we're going to have to be chessmen."

"Cool!" Bellona exclaimed.

Ron walked up to the knight and asked, "Do we, er, have to join you to get across?" The black knight nodded. Ron turned to the other four. "This needs thinking about he said. I suppose we've got to take the place of three of the black pieces..."

After a while of thinking he finally said, "Now, don't be offended or anything, but none of you are that good at chess, except Bella."

"We're not offended," said Harry quickly. "Just tell us what to do."

"Well, Harry, you take the place of that bishop, and Hermione, you're next to him instead of that castle. Bella, take the place of the other bishop, Maddy, take a knight." As he spoke the pieces he called out moved off the board.

"What about you?" Maddy asked.

"I'm going to be a knight, as well," said Ron and the second knight turned it's back on the white pieces. The group took their places on the board, rather nervous.

"White always moves first," Ron said and sure enough one of the pawns on the white side moved forward two spaces. Ron directed the black pieces and a striking thought entered Maddy's mind.

_What if it's exactly like wizard's chess?_

Unfortunately, Maddy learned the answer first hand. The white queen hit Maddy, extremely hard. Her scepter cut deeply into her arm and torso and she fell to the ground, an incredibly terrible pain in her chest. She managed to muster enough strength to run off the board before she got hurt anymore, which was an extremely good thing as the queen's next move was to bring her scepter down so hard it broke the chess board floor. Thankfully she had some ambrosia in her bag, which she always kept with her.

The other four were gaping in horror at what had just happened and Ron was apologizing fervently.

"It's okay! I'm fine! I heal quickly!" She said, her voice strained, and pulled the ambrosia out of her bag. "Finish the game!" Ron began to command the pieces again and Maddy took a bite of ambrosia, the warmness of caramel covered her sense and she could feel her wounds slowly healing, but her chest stayed in horrible pain, maybe her chest got hurt worse than she thought. But she couldn't have anymore ambrosia.

Maddy wasn't exactly paying attention to the chess game but her attention was grabbed when Harry, Hermione and Bellona shouted protests at Ron.

"That's chess!" Ron snapped. "You've got to make some sacrifices! I take one step forward and she'll take me. That leaves you free to checkmate the king, Harry!"

"But-" Harry began to protest more.

"Do you want to stop Snape or not?"

"Ron-"

"Look, if you don't hurry up, he'll already have the Stone!" The others exchanged a look of grim acceptance as they realized that that was the only way. "Ready?" Ron called, his face pale but determined. "Here I go. Now, don't hang around once you've won."

He stepped forward and the white queen struck him hard across the head, he fell, unconscious.

Bellona gaped, Hermione screamed, Harry was shaking and Maddy gasped, that must've hurt _way_ more than the attack on her did and she was used to physical pain, but Ron wasn't.

Harry moved forward after the queen dragged Ron away and stepped up to the white king, and coolly said, "Check mate." The king dropped it's crown at Harry's feet.

"What if he's-?" Hermione began.

"He'll be all right," said Harry, obviously trying to convince himself. "What do you reckon's next?"

"We only have Snape and Quirrell left," Maddy said, joining the others on the chessboard.

"You healed quickly," Hermione noted, an air of happiness in her voice as she looked at the rip in Maddy's clothes that revealed her fresh wound which now looked several hours old.

"Yeah, but Ron'll probably still be unconscious by the time we finish."

"So it's either Quirrell's or Snape's next," Bellona reiterated what Maddy had said.

"You ready?" Harry asked, his hand on the door. The others nodded and he swung the door open.

They were met with a putrid smell, Maddy noticed that a troll was lying, dead on the ground. She kind of wish he could have fought it, but then decided she was glad as her cuts could open up and they still hurt a lot as well.

"I'm glad we didn't have to fight that one," Harry whispered as they stepped carefully over one of its massive legs. "Come on, I can't breathe." Maddy heard Bellona gag from behind her as she moved over the troll.

The next room was simple and small and only had a table filled with potions, a black fire and a purple fire.

"What do we do?" Harry asked and Hermione grabbed a roll of parchment that was sitting on the table.

"' _Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,_

"' _Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,_

"' _One among us seven will let you move ahead,_

"' _Another will transport the drinker back instead,_

"' _Two among our number hold only nettle wine,_

"' _Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line._

"' _Choose, unless you wish to stay here forever more,_

"' _To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:_

"' _First, however slyly the poison tries to hide_

"' _You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;_

"' _Second, different are those who stand at either end,_

"' _But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;_

"' _Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,_

"' _Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;_

"' _Fourth, the second left and the second on the right_

"' _Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight,'"_ She recited from the parchment and sighed, then smiled. "Brilliant," said Hermione. "This isn't magic. It's logic, a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven't got an ounce of logic, they'd be stuck in here forever." Maddy snorted.

"But so will we, won't we?" Harry asked.

"Of course not," said Hermione. "Everything we need is here on this paper. Seven bottles: three are poison; two are wine; one will get us safely through the black fire, and one will get us back through the purple."

"But how do we know which to drink?" Bellona asked.

"Give me a minute," Hermione sat down with the scroll, her face contorted as she thought.

"I've got it!" She said, triumphantly standing up. She picked out two bottles, the smallest and the round one at the far end. "This one's to go through the black flames," she held out the smallest one.

"That's hardly enough for one person!" Harry exclaimed.

"Which is why I got this bottle to go through the purple flames," she gestured to the round bottle. Harry, you go through." She handed the smallest potion to Harry. "This might be enough for the rest of us."

"Okay," Harry said. "Listen, grab Ron, get on brooms and fly past Fluffy. Go to owlery. Get Hedwig and send her to Dumbledore. Tell him we need him immediately. I might be able to hold of Snape for a while, but I'm really no match for him."

"Alright," Hermione nodded.

"Listen, Harry," Maddy said quickly as he began to take a swig from the potion. "Don't be too alarmed if it isn't Snape you find on the other side of that fire." Harry pulled a weird face at her, said goodbye and walked through the fire.

Hermione then took a sip of the round potion, then Bellona, who cursed and said, "There isn't anymore, apparently it was only enough for two."

"It's fine," Maddy said quickly. "You two leave. I have my ways of getting out of places." Hermione tried to protest but Maddy wouldn't let her. "Listen, it's better if one of us is stuck down here instead of three. That way you guys can tell whoever that I'm here and I can get out that way."

"Okay," Bellona sighed and ran through the purple fire.

"But-"

" _Hermione_ , go!" Maddy roared, pointing to the fire. Hermione yelped, startled and ran through the fire after Bellona. Maddy sighed and relaxed. She should be able to shadow travel to whatever was beyond that black fire.

She concentrated hard, she needed to get to the Philosopher's Stone. Nothing happened. She concentrated harder. The shadows gathered around her but they refused to move her past the fire.

She was confused, her powers worked wherever there were shadows and it is nearly _impossible_ to make it so that there are no shadows. Maybe her wound was affecting her ability to shadow travel. She tried thinking about her dormitory.

This time it worked. Maddy had landed on her bed. She tried pushing herself to go to the Philosopher's Stone, but she couldn't. There must have been something blocking her entrance. She groaned and fell backwards until she was laying down, and that was when she became suddenly aware that she was _bleeding very badly_ and her chest was in _incredible pain_. Shadow traveling must have reopened the barely closed cuts.

She leapt up to her feet. She couldn't get any more ambrosia or nectar, it would cause negative side effects after the amount she had just had. She forced herself to get up and go to the hospital wing, hoping that Madam Pomfrey would believe that she had just tripped or something. She was too exhausted to hide herself as she trudged through the common room. Gods, those cuts were _deep_.

She yanked up her sleeve and ripped off a strip of it, tying it around her arm to try and slow the bleeding, but she couldn't do that with the cut on her chest.

By the time she had managed to climb the stairs -somehow without passing anyone, not even a ghost- and get to the hospital wing Maddy was fighting dizziness and she practically fell into Madam Pomfrey who was on her way out of the hospital wing.

She gasped and began hurriedly trying to stop the bleeding. She pushed her onto a bed and ran to get bandages. She quickly but thoroughly and hardly wrapped up Maddy's cuts. She made her drink two different potions, one tasted very unpleasant and burned on the way down and the other made her very drowsy. Ten minutes after drinking the second one she fell asleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's only one chapter left after this one but my progress on the Chamber of Secrets is pretty good and it's probably going to be quite a bit longer, the chapters are longer page-wise and I'm using a smaller font (I have no idea why I wrote this one in 14 pt font... I'm in 12 pt now though). I'm part way through the fifth chapter and I just finished the ordeal so it's going by slower than in this one (which, to be completely honest, I'm kind of disappointed with, my writing has improved a lot since I finished writing this (about a week before Christmas) and I'm hoping to go back and rewrite it with more detail.
> 
> ALSO, the Chamber of Secrets is going to diverge from the original plot a whole lot more than this one did, and Elliot and Bellona (mostly Elliot) are going to play more important parts.


	8. Ending the Year

Chapter 8: Ending the Year

When Maddy woke up she was extremely confused as to where she was but then she remember the shenanigans of the previous night, no it might have been longer than that. How long had she been asleep for? She looked around the hospital wing. Harry was lying in the bed next to her, completely knocked out. What had happened to him? What happened past those black flames?

She wondered what had woken her up and realized that Madam Pomfrey was sitting beside her with a goblet of pumpkin juice and a tray of food in hand, she was scowling. Maddy was positive that a lecture was about to come.

"It's about time you woke up," she scowled even more. "What were you thinking?"

"I tripped?" Maddy tried.

"Do you take me for a fool? You were obviously off gallivanting around with Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley, sticking you're nose in the headmaster's business." Maddy really wanted to tell her that the very existence of the stone was 'sticking it's nose' in her family's business, but she had no way to explain that to her as she was sure to demand an explanation. "You nearly died."

"It was just a couple of deep cuts," she grumbled.

"A couple of deep cuts," Madam Pomfrey scoffed. "One of your ribs broke, and it was right over your heart. If your broken rib had moved just a bit then it could have punctured your heart!" Maddy stayed quiet. "You're lucky you came at the time you did otherwise I would hate to think of what could have happened."

The rest of the day went by slowly, Hermione, Bellona, Ron and Elliot visited, Ron apologizing for the chess match again after finding out just how badly she'd been hurt, but she reassured him by saying that she heals extremely quickly and she had rather delicate skin and bones -her bones aren't _extremely_ delicate but she did once trip and break her ankle and her skin _was_ extremely easy to cut and bruise- it didn't seem to rid him of any guilt though. They also informed her that she had been right about Snape being innocent and Quirrell being the one they should have been worried about, which lead to loud gloating from Maddy.

The next day Maddy woke up when Dumbledore entered the hospital wing, he said hello to her and wished her luck in recovering, then stood in front of Harry, who had yet to wake up.

"Good afternoon, Harry," he said when Harry woke up.

"Sir! The Stone!" Harry suddenly exclaimed after a moment of silence. "It was Quirrell! He's got the Stone! Sir, quick-"

"Calm yourself, dear boy, you are a little behind the times," said Dumbledore. "Quirrell does not have the Stone."

"Then who does? Sir, I-"

"Harry, please relax, or Madam Pomfrey will have me thrown out." There was a moment of silence then Dumbledore said, "Tokens from your friends and admirers," said Dumbledore, beaming. Maddy saw that Harry was looking at a pile of sweets at the foot of his bed. "What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows. I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet seat. No doubt they thought it would amuse you. Madam Pomfrey, however, felt it might not be very unhygienic, and confiscated it."

"How long have I been in here?"

"Three days. Mr. Ronald Weasley, Miss Hermione Granger, Miss Bellona Nerva and Miss Elliot de la Mare will be most relieved you have come round, they have been extremely worried."

"But sir, the Stone."

"I see you are not to be distracted. Very well, the Stone. Professor Quirrell did not manage to take it from you. I arrived in time to prevent that, although you were doing very well on your own, I must say."

"You got there? You got Hermione's owl?"

"We must have crossed in mid air. No sooner had I reached London than it became clear to me that the place I should be was the one I had just left. I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you."

"It was you!"

"I feared I might be too late."

"You nearly were, I couldn't have kept him off the Stone much longer-"

"Not the Stone, boy, you. The effort involved nearly killed you. For one terrible moment there, I was afraid it had. As for the Stone, it has been destroyed."

"Destroyed?" said Harry blankly. _Good_ , Maddy thought. "But your friend, Nicolas Flamel-"

"Oh, you know about Nicolas?" said Dumbledore, sounding quite delighted. "You did do the thing properly, didn't you? Well, Nicolas and I have had a little chat, and agreed it's all for the best."

"But that means he and his wife will die, won't they?"

"They have enough Elixir stored to set their affairs in order and then, yes, they will die. To one as young as you, I'm sure it seems incredible, but to Nicolas and Perenelle, it really is like going to bed after a very, very long day. After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all, the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them." Dumbledore hummed a little and smiled at the ceiling.

"Sir?" said Harry. "I've been thinking... sir, even if the Stone's gone, Vol-, I mean, You-Know-Who-"

"Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."

"Yes, sir. Well, Voldemort's going to try other ways of coming back, isn't he? I mean, he hasn't gone, has he?"

"No, Harry, he has not. He is still out there somewhere, perhaps looking for another body to share, not being truly alive, he cannot be killed." What did that mean? Everything could be killed and everything has to die sometime, nothing is truly immortal, even the gods can die if people forget about them. "He left Quirrell to die, he shows just as little mercy to his followers as his enemies. Nevertheless, Harry, while you may only have delayed his return to power, it will merely take someone else who is prepared to fight what seems a losing battle next time, and if he is delayed again, and again, why, he may never return to power."

Harry and Dumbledore continued to talk for several more minutes, their conversation ended when Dumbledore ate an earwax flavoured Every Flavour Bean.

"Professor," Maddy stopped him.

"Yes, Miss Mender?" He asked, turning to face her. She paused, unsure of how to phrase her question.

"The Philosopher's Stone interferes with my father's business," she said slowly, carefully weighing what words she said. "I have told him about it and he has told me to make sure it's destroyed, so I was wondering if I could see the Stone to make sure it's been destroyed properly. I don't doubt that it had been destroyed properly, I just need to make sure."

"Of course," Dumbledore agreed, he was obviously curious about her father's 'business' but didn't ask.

"And I was also wondering what you meant when you said Voldemort isn't truly alive, so he can't be killed. How can he still control people and move around here without being a ghost or fully alive?"

"That is information for another time," Dumbledore's eyes twinkled and he left. Maddy decided to consult Hades about Voldemort, maybe he knew since Dumbledore obviously wasn't going to give her a straight answer any time soon.

While Maddy had been talking to Dumbledore, Ron, Hermione, Elliot and Bellona had entered, they were mostly just talking about what had happened since he had been unconscious and what had happened with Quirrell, neither of which she really cared about because she already knew what had happened in the school, she was assured of the Philosopher's Stone's destruction and she had been proven right about Quirrell.

After Madam Pomfrey shuffled the others out Maddy turned to Harry and said, "I have gloating rights."

"I almost died," Harry replied.

"So did I. Also, I think that the fact that I was right about Quirrell means you should trust my instincts from now on."

"Alright, fine," Harry smiled. "Are you going to be able to go to the end of year feast tomorrow."

"Probably, I'm just here today to let the bleeding thin out more before I start moving around. You?"

"I dunno," he turned to Madam Pomfrey. "I can't, can I?"

"Dumbledore said you can," she didn't seem to approve of the headmaster's decision. "And you have another visitor."

"Who is it?" Harry asked.

"It's! All! My! Ruddy! Fault!" Hagrid suddenly burst through the doors to the hospital wing, sobbing. "I told the evil git how ter get past Fluffy! I told him! It was the only thing he didn't know, an' I told him! Yeh could've died! All fer a dragon egg! I'll never drink again! I should be chucked out an' made ter live as a Muggle!"

"Hagrid!" Harry stopped the giant. "Hagrid, he'd have found out somehow, this is Voldemort we're talking about, he'd have found out even if you hadn't told him."

"It's also kind of common knowledge that _the_ Cerberus falls asleep to music, it's no surprise his descendant does too," Maddy added quietly.

"Yeh could've died!" sobbed Hagrid. "An' don' say the name!"

"VOLDEMORT!" Harry bellowed, and Hagrid was so shocked, he stopped crying. "I've met him and I'm calling him by his name. Please cheer up, Hagrid, we saved the Stone, it's gone, he can't use it. Have a Chocolate Frog, I've got loads..."

Hagrid wiped his nose on the back of his hand and said, "That reminds me. I've got yeh a present."

"It's not a stoat sandwich, is it?" said Harry anxiously, and Hagrid gave a weak chuckle.

"Nah. Dumbledore gave me the day off yesterday ter fix it. 'Course, he shoulda sacked me instead, anyway, got yeh this... Sent owls off ter all yer parents' old school friends, askin' fer photos... knew yeh didn' have any... d'yeh like it?" Harry was speechless. "And I got summat for you too," he said to Maddy, he pulled a camera out of his coat pocket and handed it to her.

"Thanks, Hagrid!" Maddy grinned.

"I remembered you talkin' about wantin' a camera to show one of yer friends in America Hogwarts' architecture."

"Yeah. Does this make moving pictures?"

"O' course." Maddy smiled again and held up the camera, snapping a picture of the room and sure enough, the picture Harry and Hagrid were moving, as well as the tree leaves that could be seen through the windows. "This is amazing!"

* * *

That evening Harry and Maddy departed for the end of year feast, Maddy's chest still ached a bit but it was tolerable. The Great Hall went silent when they entered and split apart to find their seats at their table, then everyone erupted into loud chatter. Maddy slid into her seat across from Elliot who was looking quite smug.

"What's that look for?" Maddy asked.

"I didn't say this while you were in the hospital wing, but I was smart to choose sleeping by the lake instead of following you lot," she said.

"Yeah, yeah, shut up," Maddy retorted just as Dumbledore entered, silencing the entire hall.

"Another year gone!" Dumbledore said cheerfully. "And I must trouble you with an old man's wheezing waffle before we sink our teeth into our delicious feast. What a year it has been! Hopefully your heads are all a little fuller than they were, you have the whole summer ahead to get them nice and empty before next year starts.

"Now, as I understand it, the house cup here needs awarding, and the points stand thus: In fourth place, Gryffindor, with three hundred and twelve points; in third, Hufflepuff, with three hundred and fifty-two; Ravenclaw has four hundred and twenty-six and Slytherin, four hundred and seventy- two."

A storm of cheering and stamping broke out from the Slytherin table. Maddy could see Draco Malfoy banging his goblet on the table. It was a sickening sight.

"And I thought we were the classy table," she said to Elliot who snorted.

"Yes, Yes, well done, Slytherin," said Dumbledore. "However, recent events must be taken into account. I have a few last minute points to dish out. Let me see. Yes, First, to Mr. Ronald Weasley for the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years, I award Gryffindor house fifty points." Gryffindor cheers nearly raised the bewitched ceiling; the stars overhead seemed to quiver.

"Second, to Miss Hermione Granger, for the use of cool logic in the face of fire, I award Gryffindor house fifty points." Maddy saw that Hermione had buried her face in her arms across the Great Hall.

"Third, to Miss Bellona Nerva for the willingness to trust her friend even when she believed she was wrong, I award Gryffindor house fifty points." He must've been talking about when Maddy was convincing her and Hermione to leave without her. The crowd erupted into applause again.

"Fourth, to Miss Madeline Mender for sticking with her friends through pain and sacrificing herself to allow them to succeed, I award Slytherin house fifty points." This time their was scattered applause, but Maddy didn't mind at all.

"Fifth, to Mr. Harry Potter for pure nerve and outstanding courage, I award Gryffindor house sixty points." The applause was horrendously loud. Those who could add up while yelling themselves hoarse knew that Gryffindor now had five hundred and twenty-two points -exactly the same as Slytherin. They had tied for the house cup.

Dumbledore raised his hand. The room gradually fell silent. "There are all kinds of courage," said Dumbledore, smiling. "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr. Neville Longbottom."

The applause was deafening as even the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were glad to see the Slytherins lose. Maddy and Elliot were the only Slytherin's genuinely clapping, a few were grimly clapping out of politeness but the rest were thoroughly upset.

"Now, the house points stand at Hufflepuff in fourth with three hundred and twenty-two points, Ravenclaw in third with three hundred and twenty-six, Slytherin in second with five hundred and twenty-two and Gryffindor in first with five hundred and thirty-two. I believe this calls for a change in decorations." He snapped his fingers and the Slytherin decorations suddenly changed to lions.

Dumbledore pulled Maddy aside after the feast and showed her the remains of the Philosopher's Stone, Maddy was satisfied with it but figured she better take it with her, so she shoved the bits of red stone in her pocket, telling Dumbledore that she just wanted to make sure it was destroyed properly by checking with her father.

That night they got their exam results. Elliot passed with more than flying colours in everything, but Maddy barely scraped by, the results from the practical portions of the tests making up for her utterly horrible written sections.

The next day their things were all automatically packed and they all left for the Hogwarts Express, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Bellona, Maddy and Elliot all crammed into one compartment it was cramped but nobody complained, Bellona and Maddy had just ended up sitting on the floor to make space. They all had a fun and enjoyable ride back to Platform 9¾ some of them were making plans to meet up over the summer -it was mostly Bellona who wanted to show Elliot, Ron and Maddy a multitude of movies as none of them had gotten to see any ever.

Getting through the station was hard, but all Maddy really had to do was find a dark place for her to Shadow Travel from. She looked for her friend's families, she could pick out Ron's family immediately, but not anyone else's.

Harry's aunt and uncle looked nothing like him, Bellona's dad looked _exactly_ like Bellona, Elliot's family wasn't distinctive at all apart from the fact that they were all abnormally tall, Ron's mom, dad and younger sister looked exactly how Maddy expected, having very red hair, and Maddy didn't get to see Hermione's family as they were waiting for her in front of King's Cross Station.

They all said their goodbyes and departed, Maddy decided to shadow travel from the bathroom which was, luckily, empty.

She appeared right in her cabin at Camp Half Blood, ecstatic to see her demigod friends again, but she decided to get some sleep first.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! Very short final chapter, I know.
> 
> I'm now 6 chapters(90 pages) far in CoS, so it shouldn't take too too long for HB:CoS to be posted. I'm very happy to say it's diverting from the path quite a bit, and it's more detailed and all around better, I'm just a little bit after Colin Creevey got petrified(and tormenting Lockhart is so fun)


End file.
